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APPLETONS' HOME 
*r\ READING BOOKS 




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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



ChapQlKSfopyriglit No,.. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Hppleton^' Ibome IReabing I&ooI^b 

EDITED BY 
WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A.M., LL. D. 

UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION 



DIVISION I 

Natural History 



BOOKS BY FRANK VINCENT. 



Actual Africa ; or, The Coming Continent. 

A Tour of Exploration. With Map and 104 full-page 

Illustrations, 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. 

" Nothing more complete on the subject of Africa has yet ap- 
peared than this really marvelous record of personal observation." 
— St. Paul Pioneer Press. 

" One of the most important contributions to our works of 
reference that has appeared in recent years." — New York World. 

Around and About South America: 

Twenty Months of Quest and Query. With Maps, Plans, 
and 54 full-page Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. 

" The most informing book on the subject of the South Ameri- 
can continent that has ever been produced." — Philadelphia Even- 
ing Bulletin. 

' ' Mr. Vincent far surpasses any of his predecessors who have 
written of South America in the clear, comprehensive, and almost 
exhaustive view he affords of it." — Boston Saturday Evening 
Gazette. 

In and Out of Central America; 

And Other Sketches and Studies of Travel. With 
Maps and Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 

" The cleverest, the most comprehensive, and the best book we 
have yet had on Central America. " — New York Christian Work. 

"The narrative is very skillfully handled, and comprehensive 
information regarding the little republics is afforded in highly in- 
teresting fashion." — New York Sun. 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO,, 72 Fifth Avenue. 




A Part of the Avenue of Royal Palms. 



/ 

APPLE TONS' HOME READING BOOKS 



THE PLANT WORLD 

ITS ROMANCES and REALITIES 

^ READING-BOOK OF BOTANY 



COMPILED AND EDITED BY 

FRANK VINCENT, M. A. 

AUTHOR OF ACTUAL AFRICA, AROUND AND ABOUT SOUTH AMERICA, ETC. 




NEW YORK I'Knl^-^' 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY ^ | A 

1897 



V 



Copyright, 1897, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



mXEODUCTIO]^ TO THE HOME EEADI:N^G 
BOOK SEEIES BY THE EDITOR. 



The new education takes two important direc- 
tions — one of these is toward original observation, 
requiring the pupil to test and verify what is taught 
him at school by his own experiments. The infor- 
mation that he learns from books or he^rs from, his 
teacher's lips must be assimilated bj incorporating it 
with his own experience. 

The other direction pointed out by the new edu- 
cation is systematic home reading. It forms a part of 
school extension of all kinds. The so-called " Univer- 
sity Extension " that originated at Cambridge and Ox- 
ford has as its chief feature the aid of home reading by 
lectures and round-table discussions, led or conducted 
by experts who also lay out the course of reading. 
The Chautauquan movement in this country prescribes 
a series of excellent books and furnishes for a goodly 
number of its readers annual courses of lectures. The 
teachers' reading circles that exist in many States pre- 
scribe the books to be read, and pubHsh some analysis, 
conunentary, or catechism to aid the members. 

Home reading, it seems, furnishes the essential 
basis of this great movement to extend education 



vi EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 

beyond the school and to make self -culture a habit 
of life. 

Looking more carefully at the difference between 
the two directions of the new education we can see 
what each accomplishes. There is first an effort to 
train the original powers of the individual and make 
him seK-active, quick at observation, and free in his 
thinking. jN^ext, the new education endeavors, by the 
reading of books and the study of the wisdom of the 
race, to make the child or youth a participator in the 
results of experience of all mankind. 

These two movements may be made antagonistic 
by poor teaching. The book knowledge, containing as 
it does the precious lesson of human experience, may 
be so taught as to bring with it only dead rules of 
conduct, only dead scraps of information, and no 
stimulant to original thinking. Its contents may be 
memorized without being understood. On the other 
hand, the self -activity of the child may be stimulated 
at the expense of his social well-being — his originality 
may be cultivated at the expense of his rationality. 
If he is taught persistently to have his own way, to 
trust only his own senses, to cling to his own opinions 
heedless of the experience of his fellows, he is pre- 
paring for an unsuccessful, misanthropic career, and 
is likely enough to end his life in a madhouse. 

It is admitted that a too exclusive study of the 
knowledge found in books, the knowledge which is 
aggregated from the experience and thought of other 
people, may result in loading the mind of the pupil 
with material which he can not use to advantage. 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. yii 

Some minds are so full of lumber that there is no 
space left to set up a workshop. The necessity of 
uniting both of these directions of intellectual activity 
in the schools is therefore obvious, but we must not, 
in this place, fall into the error of supposing that it is 
the oral instruction in school and the personal influ- 
ence of the teacher alone that excites the pupil to ac- 
tivity. Book instruction is not always dry and theo- 
retical. The very persons who declaim against the 
book, and praise in such strong terms the self -activity 
of the pupil and original research, are mostly persons 
who have received their practical impulse from read- 
ing the writings of educational reformers. Yery few 
persons have received an impulse from personal con- 
tact vdth inspiring teachers compared with the num- 
ber that have received an impulse from such books as 
Herbert Spencer's Treatise on Education, Kousseau's 
Emile, Pestalozzi's Leonard and Gertrude, Francis 
W. Parker's Talks about Teaching, G. Stanley 
Hall's Pedagogical Seminary. Think in this connec- 
tion, too, of the impulse to observation in natural sci- 
ence produced by such books as those of Hugh Miller, 
Faraday, Tyndall, Huxley, Agassiz, and Darwin. 

The new scientific book is different from the old. 
The old style book of science gave dead results where 
the new one gives not only the results, but a minute 
account of the method employed in reaching those re- 
sults. An insight into the method employed in dis- 
covery trains the reader into a naturalist, an historian, 
a sociologist. The books of the writers above named 
have done more to stimulate original research on the 



viii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 

part of their readers than all other influences com- 
bined. 

It is therefore much more a matter of importance 
to get the right kind of book than to get a living 
teacher. The book which teaches results, and at the 
same time gives in an intelligible manner the steps of 
discovery and the methods employed, is a book 
which will stimulate the student to repeat the ex- 
periments described and get beyond these into fields 
of original research himself. Every one remem- 
bers the pubhshed lectures of Faraday on chemistry, 
which exercised a wide influence in changing the style 
of books on natural science, causing them to deal 
with method more than results, and thus to train 
the reader's power of conducting original research. 
Eobinson Crusoe for nearly two hundred years has 
stimulated adventure and prompted young men to 
resort to the border lands of civihzation. A library 
of home reading should contain books that stimulate 
to self -activity and arouse the spirit of inquiry. The 
books should treat of methods of discovery and evo- 
lution. All nature is unified by the discovery of 
the law of evolution. Each and every being in the 
world is now explained by the process of development 
to which it belongs. Every fact now throws light on 
all the others by illustrating the process of growth in 
which each has its end and aim. 

The Home Beading Books are to be classed as 
follows : 

First Dwision. IS'atural history, including popular 
scientific treatises on plants and animals, and also de- 



EDITOR'S IISrTRODUCTION. ix 

seriptions of geographical localities. Tlie branch of 
study in the district school course which corresponds 
to this is geography. Travels and sojourns in distant 
lands ; special writings which treat of this or that 
animal or plant, or family of animals or plants ; any- 
thing that relates to organic nature or to meteorol- 
ogy, or descriptive astronomy may be placed in this 
class. 

Second Division. Whatever relates to physics or 
natural philosophy, to the statics or dynamics of air or 
water or Hght or electricity, or to the properties of 
matter ; whatever relates to chemistry, either organic 
or inorganic — books on these subjects belong to the 
class that relates to what is inorganic. Even the so- 
called organic chemistry relates to the analysis of 
organic bodies into their inorganic compounds. 

Third Division. History and biography and eth- 
nology. Books relating to the lives of individuals, and 
especially to the social life of the nation, and to the 
collisions of nations in war, as well as to the aid that 
one gives to another through commerce in times of 
peace; books on ethnology relating to the manners 
and customs of savage or civilized peoples ; books on 
the primitive manners and customs which belong to 
the earhest human beings — books on these subjects be- 
long to the third class, relating particularly to the hu- 
man will, not merely the individual will but the social 
will, the mil of the tribe or nation ; and to this third 
class belong also books on ethics and morals, and on 
forms of government and laws, and what is included 
under the term civics or the duties of citizenship. 



X EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 

Fourth Division. The fourtli class of books in- 
cludes more especially literature and works that make 
known the beautiful in such departments as sculpture, 
painting, architecture and music. Literature and art 
show human nature in the form of feelings, emotions, 
and aspirations, and they show how these feelings 
lead over to deeds and to clear thoughts. This de- 
partment of books is perhaps more important than 
any other in our home reading, inasmuch as it teaches 
a knowledge of human nature and enables us to un- 
derstand the motives that lead our fellow-men to 
action. 

To each book is added an analysis in order to aid 
the reader in separating the essential points from the 
unessential, and give each its proper share of atten- 
tion. 

W. T. Haeris. 

Washington, D. C, November 16, 1896. 



PEEF ACE. 



Professor Johonnot, author of valuable works on 
the principles and practice of teaching, has well said 
that " mechanical and unintelligent reading is the 
great reproach of our schools at the present time. In 
the process of instruction, whenever the attention is 
almost exclusively directed to words, such reading in- 
evitably results. The cause of the evil at once sug- 
gests the remedy : make thought the primary object 
of attention, and regard words as important only as 
containing the thought." 

The old-fashioned school readers do not meet these 
nor other vital requirements. Imperfectly arousing 
attention and interest, they are not calculated to form 
habits of observation, comparison, and deduction. 
Besides, they are so little entertaining and instructive 
that they rarely excite an eagerness and enthusiasm 
in students to afterward pursue the special subjects of 
which they treat. Literary, like more material food, 
should be palatable as well as nutritious. 

It is not denied that successful attempts have 
lately been made to provide such feasts. We have 



xii THE PLANT WORLD. 

had excellent "readers" in science, in industry, and 
in both human and natural history. The fascinating 
field of botany, however, seems to have been quite 
overlooked, and yet surely no subject is better calcu- 
lated to develop the mind and furnish knowledge of 
the greatest use and value. 

In the range and diversity of the fifty extracts of 
the present volume an endeavor has been made to 
secure the lively interest which comes from broad and 
characteristic treatment, and poetry has been invoked 
in addition to prose, itself oftentimes scarcely less 
picturesque and romantic. The illustrations force- 
fully reproduce several salient features of the vege- 
table kingdom. They are unique in a work of this 
kind. 

All the selections having been properly accredited, 
both in the text and in the Table of Contents, no fur- 
ther acknowledgment or additional detail is here 
thought necessary. 

F. Y. 

New York, December, 1896. 



CONTENTS, 



Spring .... 

To a Student of Botany 

The Date-Palm . 

Pitcher-Plants 

Virgin Forest in Brazil 

Distribution of Ferns . 

The Sensitive-Plant 

Uses of the Cocoa-nut Tree 

The Botanic Garden of Paredenia 

The Bamboo . 

Marine Plants 

Diffusion of Plants 

Autumn 

The Bread-Fruit-Tree 

On the Uses of Plants 

Some Wonderful Gardens 

The Chestnut-Tree 

The Banana. 

The Water-Lily . 

Plant-Lore . 

The Longevity of Trees 

Grasses. 



W. 



PAGE 

. Thomson. 1 

Yolney M. Spalding. 2 

Anonymous. 5 

. M. C. Cooke. 9 

Charles Rileyrolles, 16 

Francis George Heath. 23 

. Shelley. 29 

Bonifas-Guizot, 30 

. Ernst Haeckel. 33 

Anonymous. 40 

G. Hartwig. 43 

Anonymous. 48 

Longfellow. 52 

Fulgence Marion. 53 

S. W. Ruschenherger. 59 

F. M. Colby. 63 

Louis Figuier. 70 

G. Hartwig. 74 

Hemans. 76 

Anonymous. 77 

Elias Lewis. 84 

Margaret Flues. 95 



Xlll 



XIV 



THE PLANT WORLD. 



Giants of the Vegetable Kingdom 

Six Great Groups of Plants 

The Lotus .... 

The Habitation of Plants . 

The Victoria Regia . 

The Arab to the Palm 

The Life of Plants . 

Sea- Weeds .... 

An Autumn Garland 

The Giant Trees of California 

Mountain Vegetation 

Indian Summer . 

The Sleep of Plants . 

The Baobab 

Valuable Woods of Brazil 

Giants in the Vegetable World 

The Feast of Roses . 

The Chocolate-Plant . 

The Cinnamon Gardens of Ceyh 

Curiosities in the Vegetable Kingdom 

The Pumpkin 

Carnivorous Plants . 

The Cotton-Plant 

The Rose among the Ancients 

A Chapter on Flowers 

The Talipot-Tree 

A Talk about Useful Plants 

Subterranean Vegetation . 



PAGE 

. F. A. Fouchet. 103 

Charles Barnard. 110 

Anonymous. 115 

Count Fcdix. 118 

Faul Marcoy. 132 

Bayard Taylor. 128 

F. A. Fouchet. 130 

. Q. Hartwig. 134 

F. M. Colby. 139 
A. D. Richardson. 144 

Louis Figuier. 147 

Anonymous. 155 

F. A. Fouchet. 157 

. G. Hartwig. 161 

James Orton. 163 

M. C. Coohe. 167 

. Moore. 173 

Anonymous. 175 

G. Hartwig. 181 
I. Piatt. 184 

Whitiier. 188 

Anonymous. 190 

Q. Hartwig. 198 

Samuel B. Farsons. 201 

Emma C. Embury. 206 

. Anonymous. 213 

Charles Barnard. 218 

. G. Hartwig. 224 



illusteatio:ns. 



FACING 
PAGE 

Avenue of Royal Palms, Rio Janeiro . . Frontispiece 

Blu-Blu Waterfall, St. Thomas, West Coast of Africa . 23 

Gathering Cocoa-nuts 30 

The Bread-Fruit-Tree 53 

Climbing for Palm Wine 77 

A Dragon-Tree, Teneriffe 93 

Umbrella-Tree . .103 

Central American Fruits 110 

A Canal full of Victoria Regia Lilies 122 

Coffee Picking in Guatemala 130 

The " Grizzly Giant " 145 

The Flower of the Baobab-Tree 161 

The Giant Cactus 168 

A Clove Plantation, Zanzibar 187 

Central American Vegetables 218 



THE PLAINT WOELD. 



SPEma. 



Faie-handed Spring imbosoms every grace, 
Throws out tlie Snowdrop, and the Crocus first ; 
The Daisy, Primrose, Yiolet darkly blue, 
And Polyanthus of unnumbered dyes ; 
The yellow Wallflower, stained with iron brown ; 
And lavish Stock that scents the garden round : 
From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed, 
Anemonies; Auriculas, enriched 
"With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves ; 
And full Ranunculus, of glowing red. 
Then comes the TuHp-race, where Beauty plays 
Her idle freaks ; from family diffused 
To family, as flies the father- dust. 
The varied colors run ; and while they break 
On the charmed eye, th' exulting florist marks, 
With secret pride, the wonders of his hand. 
'No gradual bloom is wanting ; from the bud. 
First-born of Spring, to Summer's musky tribes : 
Nor Hyacinths, of purest virgin white. 
Low-bent, and blushing inward : nor Jonquils, 
2 1 



THE PLANT WORLD. 

Of potent fragrance ; nor Narcissus fair, 

As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still ; 

]^or broad Carnations, nor gay-spotted Pinks ; 

Nor, showered from every bush, the Damask Rose. 

Infinite numbers, delicacies, smells, 

With hues on hues expression cannot paint. 

The breath of Nature, and her endless bloom. 

Thomson. 



TO A STUDENT OF BOTANY. 

1. You are beginning the study of living things, 
and it is very important that you should begin in the 
right way. There are a few things that you ought to 
consider at the outset. First of all, it is essential that 
you should learn to see things just as they are, and to 
report exactly what you have seen. Agassiz used to 
say to his students : " Study to know what is ; be 
courageous enough to say, ' I do not know.' " Tyn- 
dall said to the teachers at South Kensington : " In 
every one of your experiments endeavor to feel the 
responsibility of a moral agent. ... If you wish to 
become acquainted with the truth of Nature, you 
must from the first resolve to deal with her sin- 
cerely." Darwin in his autobiography writes : " I 
had during many years followed a golden rule, namely, 
that whenever a published fact, a new observation or 
thought, came across me, which was opposed to my 



TO A STUDENT OF BOTANY. 3 

general results, to make a memorandum of it without 
fail and at once, for I had found bj experience that 
such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape 
from the memory than favorable ones." 

2. When jou have seen a thing clearly, be sure 
to express your conception, whether by drawing, or 
written description, or both, as accurately as possible. 
Learn to use scientific language with precision. Write 
out your observations in full, in the best English at 
your command. Avoid abbreviations and every other 
device for saving time. Make your drawings so that 
an engraver could copy them. Do not hesitate to 
do your work all over again, if it can be improved, as 
it probably can be, and do not leave a thing until 
you have not only a complete observation, but a com- 
plete expression of it. 

3. Do not be hasty in drawing conclusions. Make 
a constant practice of comparing the object you are 
studying with others of the same kind. I^ote dif- 
ferences and resemblances. Learn by the actual 
process what it is to acquire a general conception. 
" Honesty in science means, first, facts well proved, 
and then conclusions slowly and painfully deduced 
from facts well proved." In all your work stojp and 
think. The mere accumulation of facts, if nothing is 
done with them, is of little consequence. Constant- 
ly ask the question. What does this fact mean ? You 
may or may not be able to answer the question, but 
there is no reason for not raising it. 

4. Cultivate self-reliance, but not self-sufiiciency. 
Study things themselves rather than book descriptions 



4 THE PLANT WORLD. 

of them, but habitL' llj use the books you are referred 
to, comparing point by point your own observations 
with what the authors have to say. The writers cited 
may or may not be right; they are more likely to 
be than you are; but both of you may be wrong. 
The best way is to observe for yourself, then consult 
the books ; then observe ag-ain, and continue your ob- 
servations and comparisons until the exact truth is 
ascertained. This is the way investigations are con- 
ducted, and you are learning how to investigate. 

5. This leads to a word on the use of books. 
Make it a regular practice to look up the references 
that are given with the exercises. By doing this you 
will not only become acquainted with some of the 
most valuable botanical literature, but, what is more 
important, you will come, in some measure, to un- 
derstand the habits and methods of the great workers 
in science, and will, perhaps insensibly to yourself, 
catch something of their spirit, and learn to work as 
they did, honestly, accurately, and " with infinite pa- 
tience." 

6. One of the greatest investigators who has ever 
lived wrote a few years ago : " Whenever I have 
found out that I have blundered, or that my work 
has been imperfect, and when I have been contemp- 
tuously criticised, and even when I have been over- 
praised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been my 
greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself 
that ' I have worked as hard and as well as I could, 
and no man can do more than this.' " 

VoLNEY M. Spalding, " Guide to the Study of Common Plants." 



THE DATE-PALM. 5 

THE DATE-PALM. 

I. The date-palm {Phoenix dactyliferd) is often 
found to be tlie only tree cultivated and wild, not 
only in Arabia, but throughout the whole of northern 
Africa and the country of the Euphrates to the valley 
of the Indus. A line drawn from Cape Blanco to 
Cape Gardafui marks its southern limit in Africa; 
but there are many places besides where it will thrive 
as a cultivated tree. Even in Europe, in the southern 
parts of Spain, there exists a noble forest of fine date- 
palms, relics of the past Moorish civilization, and the 
tree has been transplanted to some parts of America 
with success. Its true home, however, is that part of 
the tropic zone where there is no rainfall, and where 
its roots are fed by the ground-water lying in the 
sand ; since the hardness of the leaves and the thick- 
ness of their outer skin enable the tree to resist the 
heat of the sun. The palms can only thrive in the 
plains. In Syria they are found inland as far as 
the base of Lebanon ; but they never grow on the 
heights, and are rarely found above 2,000 to 3,300 
feet above the sea. On Mount Sinai they are said 
to flourish as high up as 1,638 feet above the sea ; but 
beyond this they degenerate. Along their southern 
boundary they seem to prefer the coasts, and are 
found in great abundance upon the island of Soco- 
tra. Magnificent date forests are found throughout 
the delta of the Euphrates and the Tigris. In the 



6 THE PLANT WORLD. 

marsliy depressions of the soil tlie stems of the wild 
palms take root ; they do not grow here, as elsewhere, 
to a height of sixty feet, but form a dense under- 
growth with their roots and offshoots. The fruit 
of the date-palm of Bagdad is still fine and pleas- 
ant flavored. The traveler, descending the moun- 
tains of Kurdistan towards Mesopotamia, meets with 
the first date-palm near Altyn Kopru (35° 40' ]N". 
lat.), and its northern limit extends eastward from 
that place and parallel to the mountain chain which 
is hostile to its growth. But still farther eastward, 
where the coast is visited by the southwest mon- 
soons, the conditions necessary to its healthy growth 
are lacking, and therefore it is only found in British 
India along the upper course of the Indus, and on 
the southwestern slopes of Cashmere. 

2. It may be truly said of the date-palm, that no 
other plant has played such a part in the world's re- 
ligion, in history, or in poetry. It ranks in this re- 
spect before the Egyptian lotus, the Celtic mistletoe, 
the lily of France, the genista (broom) of the N^orth- 
men, or the rose, thistle, and shamrock, of our own 
country. The writer of the Canticles borrows from 
its height and graceful beauty the imagery in which 
he depicts the royal maiden of whom he sings ; and 
when the noble hero of the Grecian epic approaches 
the king's daughter T^ausicaa with suppliant words, 
he says — 

" For never saw I yet one like to thee. 
Or man or woman ; and I gaze with joy. 
So once in Delos have mine eyes beheld, 



THE DATE-PALM. 7 

Beside Apollo's altar, a fair palm 

Whose slender, graceful stem enthralled my sight ; 

For the earth holds not such another growth." 

3. The palm is " the queen of the oasis, whose foot 
is bathed in water, and her head uplifted to the fii-e of 
heaven." l^o storm breaks or uproots her ; no sun- 
beam penetrates through the sheltering roof of its 
feathery, rustling leaves, often more than three yards 
in length. Sheltering the spring of water, and pro- 
tecting the growth of vegetables and low shrubs at 
her feet, she is the creator, ornament, protectress, and 
wealth of the oasis. The traveler looks with joy on 
the distant vision of her crown of leaves as thej rise 
above the horizon of the desert ; they are the sure 
sign of inhabited homest-eads and a welcome resting 
place. The pleasant fruit, in shape and size like a 
plum, hangs down in rich clusters, and in many places, 
especially in Arabia, its sweet, pleasant-tasted fruit 
forms the daily bread of the inhabitants, and one of 
their most valuable articles of commerce. A single 
date tree bears yearly from five to six hundredweight. 
The fastidious European owns the delicacy of its fla- 
vor, although it is very rare that good specimens of 
the fruit are sold in Europe. But the tree has not 
always been what it has now become. The plains of 
the lower Euphrates and of the Tigris were the para- 
dise where men cultivated and improved the life-giv- 
ing tree, and whence it spread to other countries. 

4. It is a remarkable fact in. the history of civili- 
zation, only to be paralleled with the other fact that 
the dromedary, "the ship of the desert," was not 



8 THE PLANT WORLD. 

•known in Africa until the third century of the Chris- 
tian era ; and yet the dromedary seems created espe- 
cially for the Libyan Desert, and by its means the 
inaccessible region has been thrown open to men of 
other races and other rehgions. The camel and the 
date-palm, two blessings of creation, closely connected 
in the necessities of their existence, and apparently an 
integral part of desert life and scenery, do not even 
belong originally to desert lands. They are the prod- 
uct and growth of the inhabitants of the desert, who 
tamed the one, and developed the luscious honey- 
sweet fruit of the other, which made this part of the 
globe habitable. The palm in its present state of 
perfection makes life only too easy for its lord and 
master, giving him almost all he needs without any 
labor; and thus adding a link to his gloomy, indo- 
lent fatalism, and to the dignified repose with which 
he veils the hot passions slumbering below his assumed 
cahn. We need not specify in greater detail the mani- 
fold uses of the date-palm ; we content ourselves with 
referring, after Strabo and Plutarch, to the Persian 
or Babylonian hymn in which the praises of the date- 
palm are sung, and three hundred ways in which it 
may be used are fully set forth. 

Anonymous, " Wonders of Living Nature." 



I/' 

PITCHER-PLANTS. Q 



pitchee-pla:n^ts. 

1. Theee are some plants whicli have commended 
themselYes to notice either by their singular form, 
peculiar habit, showy flowers, or beautiful odor. Be- 
fore carnivorous plants attracted any attention on ac- 
count of their flesh-devouring proclivities, the Pitcher- 
plants had acquired notoriety, not on account of 
their showy flowers or beautiful odors — because these 
are attractions which they do not possess — but sim- 
ply on account of their singular form. The pitchers, 
from whence the name is derived, hang suspended at 
the ends of the leaves, of which they are simply pro- 
longations and modifications. Most Pitcher-plants 
consist of a clump of long, narrow green leaves. The 
extremities of the latter are attenuated down to the 
midrib, which becomes reduced to a cord, at the end 
of which hang suspended, one from each of many of 
the leaves, a curious bag or pouch, not unlike a small 
and delicate jug or pitcher, with a smaller leaf-Uke 
flap hanging over the mouth like a lid. These pitchers 
usually contain a little fluid, looking like water, at the 
bottom, in which are drowned insects. Such were 
the Pitcher-plants to our forefathers, and they were 
regarded simply as "curiosities of vegetation." To 
us they are something more, now that their history is 
better known, and for reasons which it shall be our 
object to explain. 



10 THE PLANT WORLD. 

2. Botanically, the Pitclier-plants proper are 
known by the name of ]^epenthes, an old classical 
name, the application of which to these plants is some- 
what obscure. One writer has attempted an apology 
for it in the following manner : "I have often won- 
dered why Linnaeus gave to this genus the name of 
IS'epenthes. Every reader of classic story remembers 
that when Telemachus reached the court of Mene- 
laus, tired and famished, the beautiful Helen gave 
him nepenthe to drink. 'No one has ever been able 
to say what this nepenthe was, though no doubt one 
of the ' drowsy sirups of the East.' Johnson defines 
nepenthe as an ' herb that drives away sadness.' Lin- 
naeus, perhaps, intended to refer to the tankard-like 
structure, so like also in the original species to a hot- 
water jug with its lid. Sometimes I am disposed to 
think that old Homer may have meant by nepenthe 
no physical beverage, but the sweet graces of Helen's 
queenly and consummate hospitality and welcome, 
touching, as they did, her guest's inmost feelings of 
love and reverence. If so, J^epentlie is well applied 
to its present owner, for assuredly no plant appeals 
more strongly to our sense of the admirable and the 
unique." 

3. These tropical plants can only be cultivated in 
hot-houses in this country, and hence there are many 
persons to whom they are utter strangers. It may be 
true that all recent horticultural exhibitions have in- 
cluded specimens, but there are thousands of unfor- 
tunate individuals who can never visit " flower-shows," 
although there are but few in the neighborhood of 



PITCHER-PLANTS. 11 

the metropolis who could not search out the Pitcher- 
plant in that favorite hohday resort — Kew Gardens. 
Travelers have described for us the appearance of 
these plants in their native homes, and especially 
those who have visited Borneo and the other islands 
of the Indian archipelago. Among others, Mr. Al- 
fred Wallace thus alludes to them. He says : " We 
had been told we should find water at Padangbatu, 
but we looked about for it in vain, as we were ex- 
ceedingly thirsty. At last we turned to the Pitcher- 
plants, but the water contained in the pitchers (about 
half a pint in each) was full of insects, and other- 
wise uninviting. On tasting it, however, we found 
it very palatable, though rather warm, and we all 
quenched our thirst from these natural jugs." 

4. And again, when at Borneo, the same traveler 
writes : " The wonderful Pitcher-plants, forming 
the genus I^epenthes of botanists, here reach their 
greatest development. Every mountain-top abounds 
with them, running along the ground or climbing 
over shrubs and stunted trees ; their elegant pitchers 
hanging in every direction. Some of these are long 
and slender, resembling in form the beautiful Phil- 
ippine lace-sponge, which has now become so com- 
mon ; others are broad and short ; their colors are 
green, variously tinted, and mottled with red or pur- 
ple. The finest yet known were obtained on the 
summit of Kini-balou, in northwest Borneo. One 
of the broad sort Avill hold two quarts of water in its 
pitcher. Another has a narrow pitcher twenty inches 
long, while the plant itseK grows to the length of twenty 



12 THE PLANT WORLD. 

feet." In 1847, when Lindley published the second 
edition of his " Vegetable Kingdom," he recorded, 
with somewhat of doubt, the number of different 
species as six, whereas, so many have been discovered 
since, that we may consider them equal to ^ve times 
that number. 

5. There are, says Dr. Hooker, " upward of thir- 
ty species of Kepenthes, natives of the hotter parts of 
the Asiatic archipelago, from Borneo to Ceylon, with 
a few outlying species in 'New Caledonia, in tropical 
Australia, and in the Seychelles Islands on the Afri- 
can coast. The pitchers are abundantly produced, es- 
pecially during the younger state of the plants. They 
present very considerable modifications of form and 
external structure, and vary greatly in size, from little 
more than an inch to almost a foot in length ; one 
species indeed, from the mountains of Borneo, has 
pitchers which, including the hd, measure a foot and 
a half, and the capacious bowl is large enough to 
drown a small animal or bird." 

6. In most species the pitchers are of two forms, 
one pertaining to the young, the other to the old state 
of the plant, the transition from one form to the 
other being gradual. Those of the young state are 
shorter and more inflated; they have broad fringed 
longitudinal wings on the outside, which are probably 
guides to lead insects to the mouth ; the lid is smaller 
and more open, and the whole interior surface is 
covered with secreting glands. Being formed near 
the root of the plant, these pitchers often rest on the 
ground, and in species which do not form leaves near 



PITCHER-PLANTS. 13 

the root they are sometimes suspended from stalks 
which may be fully a yard long, and which bring 
them to the ground. In the older state of the plant 
the pitchers are usually much longer, narrower, and 
less inflated, trumpet-shaped ; the wings also are nar- 
rower, less fringed, or almost absent. The lid is 
larger and slants over the mouth, and only the lower 
part of the pitcher is covered with secreting glands, 
the upper part presenting a tissue of different char- 
acter. 

7. The difference of structure in these two forms 
of pitcher, considered in reference to their different 
positions on the plant, forces the conclusion on the 
mind that the one form is intended for ground 
game, the other for winged game. In all cases the 
mouth of the pitcher is furnished with a thickened 
corrugated rim, which serves three purposes : it 
strengthens the mouth, and keeps it distended ; it se- 
cretes honey, and it is in various species developed 
into a funnel-shaped tube, that descends into the 
pitcher, and prevents the escape of insects, or into a 
row of incurved hooks, that are in some cases strong 
enough to retain a small bird, should it, when in 
search of water or of insects, thrust its body beyond 
a certain length into the pitcher. In one species 
{Nepenthes hicalcarata) there are also two strong 
pointed hooks, or teeth, which are directed down- 
ward towards the mouth of the pitcher. Such ap- 
pendages would doubtless be of service in preventing 
the free exit of any large insect after it had once 
entered the pitcher. 



14 THE PLANT WORLD. 

8. The attractive surfaces of Nepenthes are two, 
those namely of the rim of the pitcher, and of the 
under surface of the hd, which is provided in almost 
every species with honey-secreting glands, often in 
great abundance. It is a singular fact that the only 
species known to the writer of these observations, 
in which the honey -glands on the lid were absent, was 
a species in which the lid, unlike that of other species, 
is thrown back horizontally. The secretion of honey 
on a lid so placed would tend to lure insects away 
from the pitcher instead of into it. 

9. From the mouth downward, for a variable dis- 
tance inside the pitchers, the glassy glaucous surface 
affords no foothold for insects. The rest is entirely 
occupied with the secretive surface, which consists 
of a cellular floor crowded with spherical glands in 
inconceivable numbers. Each gland resembles the 
honey-glands of the lid, semicircular, with the mouth 
downward, so that the secretive fluid all falls to the 
bottom of the pitcher. In one species three thou- 
sand of these glands were ascertained by Dr. Hooker 
to occur on a square inch of the inner surface of the 
pitcher, and upwards of a million in an ordinary-sized 
pitcher. The glands secrete the fluid which is con- 
tained at the bottom of the pitchers previous to 
their opening, and this fluid is alway acid. When 
the fluid is* emptied out of a fully-formed pitcher, that 
has not received animal matter, it forms again, but 
in comparatively very small quantities, and the for- 
mation goes on for many days, even after the pitcher 
has been removed from the plant. " I do not find," 



PITCHER-PLANTS. 15 

says Dr. Hooker, " that placing inorganic sub- 
stances in the fluid causes an increased secretion, 
but I have twice observed a considerable increase 
of fluid in pitchers after putting animal matter in 
the fluid." 

10. A series of experiments performed with the 
pitchers of these Pitcher-plants, resembled those ap- 
plied previously to the Sundews and Fly-trap, with 
similar results. "White of egg, raw meat, fibrin, and 
cartilage were employed for feeding. In all cases 
the action was most evident, and in some surprising. 
After twenty-four hours' immersion, the edges of the 
cubes of white of egg were eaten away, and the sur- 
faces gelatinized. Fragments of meat were rapidly 
reduced, and pieces of fibrin weighing several grains 
were dissolved, and had totally disappeared in two 
or three days. With cartilage the action was most 
remarkable. Lumps of this, weighing eight and ten 
grains, were half -gelatinized in twenty-four hours, 
and in three days the whole mass was greatly dimin- 
ished, and reduced to a clear, transparent jelly. 

11. That this action, which is comparable to diges- 
tion, is not wholly due to the secretion, as at first 
deposited, seems probable, since very little change 
took place in any of the substances when placed in 
the fluid drawn from the pitchers, and put in glass 
tubes, nor even in substances immersed in the pitch- 
ers, when the plants have been removed into a room 
the temperature of which was far below that of the 
normal temperature in which the plant flourishes. 
In the latter case, as soon as the plant was taken back 



16 THE PLANT WORLD. 

into a higher and more normal temperature, the im- 
mersed substances were immediately acted upon. 

M. C. Cooke, " Freaks and Marvels of Plant Life." 



YIEGIJS^ FOEEST IN BEAZIL. 

1. I NEVER entered one of these free wild sanctu- 
aries, without a most profound emotion. It was not 
fear, it was not respect. I paid little heed to the 
spirits or the fairies of the wood. I recalled no leg- 
end, and the prophetic worship of the ancients of the 
mysteries of sacred forests in no degree inclined my 
soul toward the giant trees, these altars of shades. 

2. It was the infinity, the mystery of this rich 
creation, gigantic and inexhaustible, the universal life, 
which beckoned me to enter. In the midst of this 
circulation of sap, this expansion of form, I felt my- 
self small, feeble, powerless ; the internal gloom, the 
night of science overwhelmed me, and the modern 
spirit of seeking possessed me with its fever. I ad- 
mire the savants^ who, bending over a herbal, say to 
you, " Study carefully the structure of internal tissues, 
mark the absence or the number of cotyledons, follow 
the evolution of the germs, verify the sex, and you 
can place every plant in one of the four classes of the 
vegetable kingdom." 

3. Eeally is this all the difficulty ? Is the secret 
of the life of plants a question of cotyledons ? God 



VIRGIN FOREST IN BRAZIL. 17 

forbid that I should blaspheme patience and genius. 
The great masters of botany, Gesner, Adanson, Lin- 
naeus, and Laurent de Jussieu, having justly merited 
human gratitude, in giving us rules for examination, 
the natural affinities, and the organic analogies. But 
wherein have these methods and classifications re- 
vealed the being of the plant ? To describe is not to 
explain, and the phenomenon is not the law. But 
yet, let museums be arranged, and cabinets secured, 
conservatories built ; but if you should enter the pri- 
meval woods, and amuse yourseK in counting the 
cotyledons, cyclopaedias would not suffice to name, nor 
centuries to number ! 

4. Tropical forests resemble very little the great 
woods of Europe, where the species are grouped and 
massed. Here the infinitely varied natures are con- 
fusedly mingled. 

5. A rich disorder marries plant, flower, and sap, 
life overflows in leaves and fruits, to the risk of dew- 
filled chalices. The carpet is no regular design of 
grasses, or cryptogamige, of herbs or mosses, it is a 
chaos of capricious vegetation, of enameled flowering, 
intermingled with giant ferns ; and as for the trees, 
which shade or arch it, !N^ature and the winds have 
thrown them in by thousands, as the suns are scattered 
through space by the hand of God. 

6. All that one can dare to attempt in this laby- 
rinth is a general sketch of forms, a modest draught 
of the interior plan of these marvelous constructions. 

7. The general appearance of a virgin forest such 
as is seen on the Brazilian hills, is that of a grove in 



18 THE PLANT WORLD. 

tlie form of an amphitlieater. From the deptlis of 
the gorges rise the primitive trees, the trunks of which 
are hidden under a giant juicy growth, the shooting 
branches of which form an arch or basket. You 
would saj the roots of the secondary plan gave the 
leaves and flowers; and so they rise from rank to 
rank, to the very summits where sometimes immense 
granite blocks appear above the last clusters of foliage, 
now bathed in sunshine, now crowned with clouds. 
Shading upward, from the deepest green to slaty 
gray, from a purple red to pure lilac and white, every 
shade, every tone, every delight of the eye in color 
is found on this forest mantle fringed with flowers. 

8. But if you will penetrate the secret of the 
woods, its arrangements, its freaks and fantasies of 
architecture, you must go under the arch and wander 
as far as possible, opening a path, hatchet in hand. 
Then the internal economy of these wild woods, so 
wise in its disorder, is seen. The three elements are 
before us — herb, vine, and tree — and if we can fathom 
neither the mystery nor the power of the creations, 
we can at least study and follow in its external form 
this vast and rich organism. The grasses and modest 
woody plants, the Brazilian creepers with tuberous or 
fleshy roots, Eusentes, and Liseroles, with white or 
blue flowers, climb, creep, twist, and interlace them- 
selves, while parasites are attached to the shrubs and 
trunks of the trees. These charming vampires all 
absorb the juices, but do they give nothing in return ? 
IS'ot a single one of these malvaceas but has its prop- 
erty, purgative or f ebrifuginous, and if medical botany 



VIRGIN FOREST IN BRAZIL. 19 

ever minutely studies these humble climbers, in root, 
bark, and flower, they will find more than one treasure. 
These plants secrete Hfe. 

9. Above the grasses and ConvolvulaGece rise the 
vines with hardy flexible branches. They run from 
tree to tree, enveloping the trunks almost to suffoca- 
tion, describing curves and spirals stretching out into 
airy bridges, then descend, only to climb again hke 
ladders. This vegetation is wild as caprice itself, and 
in its athletic evolutions it defies art and fantasy. It 
has undulations which charm, lines which astonish us. 
It involves everything, intermingles with everything, 
grasses, trees, branch and trunk, the lively orchids, 
which form cornices for the socles of the trees or 
flowers for their capitals. It is the gluttonous para- 
site, the butterfly, its kingdom is the whole forest. 

10. The artist dreaming of monuments, studies the 
old cartoons of the museums, the Ionic, the Doric, 
the Corinthian, the Composite, the Tuscan orders, and 
the Mauresque with its rich carvings. Why does he 
not go to the forest and study the vine, that grand 
worker, which day and night alike advances, inter- 
laces, constructs, and extends ? He would find here 
all the divine forms of Grecian art, all the fantasies 
of the spirit of the present, but varied to infinity, 
attaching themselves to, and leaning upon, the two im- 
mortal conditions of beauty — strength and grace. 

11. Callimachus, the sculptor-architect, formerly 
borrowed the acanthus leaf from the tomb of a Corin- 
thian maiden, and this flower of art made him immor- 
tal. How many similar flowers might there not be 



20 • THE PLANT WORLD. 

ravished from these virgin forests, and how fruitful 
would be the study of the full, rich, perspective of 
these marvelous constructions ! Art, like Science, 
should renew itself, rejuvenate itseK on the breast of 
IS'ature. There lies the path of the age. 

12. And the dealers in wood, the wood-carvers, 
the fabricators of household furniture, those who fur- 
nish the raw material and the timber, what do thej in 
their lumber-yards and work-shops with their nut- 
wood, their oak, and their northern pine ? For build- 
ing and for ornament, there are here hundreds and 
hundreds of varieties of trees tall and perfect, which 
spring up, develop and die^ useless creations, substances 
ignored, forces lost. 

13. Dye-woods, gum-producing and resinous trees, 
or trees with heahng bark ; what rich varieties would 
be found in these virgin forests ! Many have been 
discovered, and a few have been classed; but what 
numbers of substances are still unknown, and how 
many precious juices are lost under the bark which 
covers them ! Between the creeper which corrodes 
the trees at the foot, and the flowers which crown 
them, there are indeed many secrets and more than 
one specific. 

14. But I have no inducement to the study of these 
matters. I belong neither to medicine, to the axe, nor 
to the plane ; and regretting all these lost values, I 
enter the forest to dream there. 

15. It is early morning, the sun gilds but does not 
penetrate the dark-green curtains. A single pencil of 
rays comes across the dry white branches of a light- 



VIRGIN FOREST IN BRAZIL. 21 

ning-stricken irribera, and caresses the red flowers of 
the ipomea at my feet. Little caravans on the march 
make a rusthng in the leaves and grass. These are 
the travelers of the forest, insects, ants, and lizards, 
who go either to the harvest or the hunt. 

16. Butterflies bend over the flower cups which 
the bees have visited. The tribe of neutral ants go 
out in squadrons seeking for the puceron ; and the 
timid agouti, squat under the mosses, gnaws at the 
leaves and roots. 

IT. The water-hog — capibara — the deer, and the 
tapir, they breakfast farther away under retired 
bowers at the foot of precipices ; and one might go 
for leagues through the wood without finding the 
ounce ; the striped huntress is in pursuit of the boto- 
cudos. 

18. Above the creepers and ferns, from among 
the high branches, paroquets scream under the green 
leaves. 

19. Monkeys, red and brown and with furry tails, 
are there howling and grimacing, rolled round the 
branches like moss. 

20. The ouistitis, greedy lover of insects, watches 
or gambols in the sun, the locust exhausts its stridu- 
lous monotones, and the colibris chase the pollen. The 
bird-flies ruby-winged, the narcissus of the flowers, 
green coleopteras and 'butterflies with their blazing 
corselets and blue wings, all the graceful atoms in the 
sun's beams, fly, intermingle, rise, and fall like the 
sparks of a feu d^ artifice, and shimmer, bathed in 
gold, in the light of the glades and distant vistas. 



22 THE PLANT WOULD. 

21. There is less noise and less luster in the mosses 
below, but there is a whole living, busy, animated 
world there, notwithstanding. The tree-trunks are 
peopled, the roots have their hives, the bark hides its 
legions, the sap trickles, there is life everywhere. 
Creation, incessant, universal, infinite, inexhaustible, 
which lives from death. 

22. These are what I have found, and what I have 
seen in the forest: a rich and varied panorama, a 
sweet and powerful orchestra, a conservatory opulent 
in perfumes, a casket of flowers. It has given me all 
the joys of sense ; the mind too has had its enlighten- 
ment and its enchantment. 

23. This grand tree, with its straight smooth 
trunk, shooting up hke the pahn, toward the clouds — 
what is its fate ? 

24. I see it prone, naked, in the hands of the ship- 
wright ; then it rises, the shapely mast of a noble ship, 
carrying a flag, and the ideas which it represents, to 
the ends of the earth. It will hold the blessed canvas, 
perhaps, which shall waft us to the wished-f or port of 
our lost country. 

25. Mount, ever mount, tree of our dreams and 
hopes ! May the gnawing worm be far from thy pow- 
erful trunk ! May the hghtning spare thy head ! 

26. How generous and fruitful is the virgin forest 
of southern lands ! Like Cybele, her mother, she bares 
her breast to all. She has germs and essences, she has 
sap and hidden forces, for science, for art, and for la- 
bor. She shelters under her arches all that vast un- 
known animal kingdom, from the insect to the jaguar, 



DISTRIBUTION OF FERNS. 23 

from the infusoria to tlie monkey. The Indian, too, 
finds there his shelter and his food, like the plants and 
the bee. But it is sufficient for itself, it renews itself 
with the ages, clothed like them in unfading youth. 
It is one of the grand, free, and sovereign beings, 
which remain on the earth. What is its secret ? Hu- 
midity and heat, sunshine and dew. 

27. What sun and dew are to the forest, science 
and labor are to humanity. A forest is not alone a 
poetic grouping, the great poem of the eyes ; it is a 
profound system of philosophy, a revelation which 
promulgates one of the great laws of creation. 

Charles Ribeyrolles, " The Sublime in Nature." 



DISTEIBUTIOIS' OF FEE:N'S. 

1. Ferns are associated with the most beautiful 
portions of this world's surface. The most graceful 
of Nature's garments, they seek to clothe, not the dull 
expanse of level plain, or the bare, straight side of hiU 
or mountain. They do not grow on sandy flats, on the 
even margin of a sluggish river, or on the smooth and 
reckless lines of seacoast. Where the scorching sun- 
rays fall unscreened upon arid earth, and where no 
shadows relieve the course of a far-reaching expanse 
of open country, no ferny growths are found. It is 
where ^Nature is in her wildest moods, and assumes 
her grandest aspects, or where the beauty which is 
spread over rock and wood and stream is of that 



24 THE PLANT WORLD. 

dreamy kind which most powerfully stirs the imagina- 
tion and enthralls the soul, that ferns are found in the 
greatest perfection, waving their graceful fronds in 
response to the mountain breeze, or bending under 
the weight of spray drops flung upon them from the 
impetuous mountain torrent. 

2. Ferns love to grow where the land is musical 
with running water; where great woods fling their 
shadows upon the hillside, and hang darkly over 
stream-crossed valleys ; where rivers, wandering over 
the crests of towering rocks, and leaping from the 
sunhght, fall foaming into dark pools, bristling below 
with sharp points of stone, to be carried thence, in 
fury, down steep inclines to the sea ; where for long 
miles the landscape undulates into heathery waves, 
broken by clumps of gorse on rocky mounds, shel- 
tered by prickly hawthorn or trailing sprays of black- 
berry ; where undulating meadows, cleft into many a 
sheltered hollow, roll gracefully away as far as the 
eye can reach ; where storm-tossed waves roar upon 
the rugged points of a rocky coast, and echo into many 
a cavernous hollow moist with the perpetual drop- 
pings of percolating water ; where, in short, mountain 
and valley or hill and glen commingle ; and towering 
rocks or stately woods, jutting knolls and arching 
branches, play with sunshine and shadow, and caress 
the sides of running streams, whose sparkling waters 
give birth to soft, moist vapors. 

3. Enough has been said to show that ferns de- 
light in moist and shady places, and, thoroughly in 
keeping with their soft and graceful habit, they love 



DISTRIBUTION OF FERNS. 25 

light and porous soils, where their roots can keep free 
from stagnancy. On shady slopes and modest eleva- 
tions they mostly like to dwell. Fibrous peat and 
sand, and the spongy mold of fallen leaves, form 
soils in which these plants delight. Through such 
soils water always percolates freely; for stagnant 
moisture is fatal to fern life. Hence the sloping sides 
of a mound or hedge-bank ; the crest and sides of 
rocky elevations ; the forks of trees, where leaf -mold 
has accumulated; the shaded margins of running 
brooks or larger streams; the moist caverns in the 
sides of cliffs above the tide-mark ; the mossy crests 
of islets in mid-stream ; the sloping, sheltered hill- 
sides ; even the moister hollows of the plain, and the 
broken depths of forest glades and forest coverts, are 
the sites which are most congenial to ferny forms, 
and which most readily adapt themselves to ferny 
growths. 

4. It will be seen that the presence of ferns in any 
place assumes the pre-existence of conditions favor- 
able to their growth. They are never found absent 
from an old forest. Let us inquire the reason of this, 
and examine into Nature's preparations for their re- 
ception. The presence of clustered trees for a long 
period of years gives rise to the formation of a surface 
soil which is composed of the decomposed remains of 
the crops of leaves which, in the deciduous species of 
trees, annually fall to the ground. Leaves upon leaves 
accumulating form the most perfect vegetable mold, 
and this, built up upon the porous subsoil, and largely 
intermixed with the root libers of plants which have 



26 THE PLANT WORLD. 

sprung up and died down each year, constitutes a soil — 
at once rich, hght, and porous — in which ferns espe- 
cially delight. The sheltering canopy of trees, while 
it keeps out the sunlight, keeps in the moist emana- 
tions from the ground, and thus creates other condi- 
tions which are essential to fern life. Within a forest 
the ground is generally uneven and diversified. Banks 
of rock or earth are found scattered about — the former 
cleft into various shapes, forming hollows and crevices 
of various kinds — the latter mostly covered by some 
species of vegetation of dwarf or shrubby growth, and 
overarched by the taller growths of the forest. In 
the hollows and crevices of the rocks, and upon the 
top and sides of the earthy banks leaves perpetually 
fall and decay, and in course of time form a leafy soil, 
which mingles with crumbling rock or earthy granules, 
it may be, of sand or gravel. Upon such places fern 
spores drop, and find the situation suited for them by 
reason of its moist and sheltered position. Soil and 
position being congenial, the spores develop into plant- 
lets, and these in time into full-grown ferns. The 
conditions which favored their early existence are 
maintained. The soil is annually enriched by addi- 
tional deposits of leaf -mold, and, the moisture and 
shelter continuing, the ferns grow to maturity, and 
then spread their myriad atoms of reproduction, which, 
wafted to other rocky holes, marshy banks, and old, 
moist forks of trees, soon fill the forest with graceful 
ferny forms, covering sloping banks, waving from the 
crowns of pollard trunks, and draping rock and river 
with their feathery tresses. 



DISTRIBUTION OF FERNS. 27 

5. Or take the case of a stream which flows rapidly 
through a mountain gorge, or along the bowlder-strewn 
bed of a valley. Yegetation of large growth — trees 
or giant shrubs — will follow the course of such a stream, 
for its moist channel is favorable to the development 
of vegetable life. The stream brings moisture ; the 
trees or other growths biding shelter ; the force of the 
current makes and maintains holes and fissures in its 
earthy or rocky bed. These are filled with leaf -mold 
from dropping leaves, and with sand and fibers from 
the carrying stream. Then Xature begins her work, 
and plants her smaller growths of moss, hchen, and 
fern on the dark, moist surfaces of earth or rock. The 
process of dwarf forestry commences, and slowly and 
surely the whole ground-plan is draped with a mantle 
of living green. 

6. Chance, perhaps, has thrown together in mid- 
stream some shapeless masses of rock ; the water brings 
do^vn a contingent of broken branches torn from their 
parent stems by the force of high winds, or fallen un- 
der the process of natural decay. The jutting masses 
of stone arrest the woody fragments, and these in their 
turn catch the passing whirl of stream-borne leaves, 
and dam the earthy substances washed down from the 
banks of the stream above. A process of accumula- 
tion commences. The mass thickens and strengthens, 
and some bold plant starts up from its center. Others 
follow, and their matted roots consohdate the sub- 
stance, which by degrees acquires increased consistency 
and becomes an islet. Among the earliest of vege- 
table inhabitants are the mosses and lichens, and then 



28 THE PLANT WORLD. 

the domain is appropriated as another portion of the 
fern world bj the appearance of some representative 
of the moisture-loving family. 

7. Again, the face of the country may be traversed 
by gentle risings of the ground, and intersected by 
hedge-banks dividing the domains of pasture or corn 
land and skirting a network of roads and lanes. If 
the soil be rich and the roadways narrow, the banks 
of earth or loosely built stone may be crowned by 
stately shrubs or trees, whose branches cross the way 
between and meet each other. Then upon the hedge- 
top, or on the hedge-bank, leaf -mold gathers, and 
ferny forms assemble and greet the passerby. 

8. Let it be remembered, however, that the vari- 
ous members of this beautiful family of plants have 
varying predilections in the matter of soil and posi- 
tion. Some seek the drenching moisture of the water- 
fall or the dripping walls of sea-caves. Others can 
live and thrive in the moderate moisture of sloping 
banks under the shelter of shrubs or trees, while 
others still will grow on the open surface of an un- 
dulating plain. But, with few exceptions, ferns mostly 
love to be elevated, even if but slightly, above level 
surfaces. It is percolating moisture which they love — 
moisture which does not rest about their roots, but 
passes away immediately into the soil below. And 
there is a beautiful consistency in the love of these 
plants for sloping banks and jutting knolls, for only 
in such positions can they show to advantage their 
graceful and beautiful forms. 

Francis George Heath, " The Fern World." 



THE SENSITIVE-PLANT. 29 



THE SEJSTSITIYE-PLAIS^T. 

1. A Sensitiye-Plant in a garden grew, 
And the young winds fed it with silver dew, 
And it opened its fan -like leaves to the light, 
And closed them beneath the kisses of night. 

2. And the Spring arose on the garden fair, 
And the Spirit of Love fell everywhere ; 

And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast 
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. 

3. But none ever trembled and panted with bliss 
In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, 

Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want. 
As the companionless Sensitive-Plant. 

4. The snowdrop, and then the violet, 

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, 
And their breath was mixed with fresh odor sent 
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. 

5. Then the pied windflowers and tulip tall. 
And narcissi, the fairest among them all. 
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess. 
Till they die of their own dear loveliness ; 

6. And the ]^aiad-like lily of the vale, 

Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale, 
That the hght of its tremulous bells is seen 
Through their pavilions of tender green ; 



30 THE PLANT WORLD. 

7. And the hyacintH purple, and wMte, and blue, 
Whicli flung from its bells a sweet peal anew 
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, 

It was felt like an odor within the sense ; 

8. And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed, 
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, 
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air 

The soul of her beauty and love lay bare ; 

9. And the wand-like Hly, which lifted up. 
As a Mgenad, its moonlight-colored cup, 
Till the fiery star, which is its eye, 

Gazed through the clear dew on the tender sky ; 

10. And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, 
The sweetest flower for scent that blows ; 
And all rare blossoms from every clime 
Grew in that garden in perfect prime. 

Shelley. 



USES OF THE COCOA-NUT TEEE. 

1. Imagine a traveler passing through one of those 
countries, situated under a burning sky, where cool- 
ness and shade are so rare, and where habitations, in 
which to take the repose so necessary to the traveler, 
are only to be found at considerable distances. Pant- 
ing and dispirited, the poor traveler at length per- 



USES OP THE COCOA-NUT TREE. 31 

ceives a hut surrounded bj some trees with straight 
erect stems, surmounted by an immense tuft of green 
leaves, some being upright and the others pendent, 
giving an agreeable and elegant aspect to the scene. 
Nothing else near the cabin indicates cultivated land. 
At this sight the spirits of the traveler revive ; he col- 
lects his strength, and is soon beneath the hospitable 
roof. His host offers him an acidulous di-ink, with 
which he slakes his thirst ; it refreshes him. When 
he has taken some repose, the Indian invites him to 
share his repast. He produces various courses, served 
in a brown-looking vessel, smooth and glossy ; he 
serves also some wine of an extremely agreeable fla- 
vor. Toward the end of the repast his host offers 
him sweetmeats, and he is made to taste some excel- 
lent spirits. 

2. The astonished traveler asks who in this desert 
country furnishes him with all these things. *'My 
cocoa-nut tree," was the reply. " The drink I pre- 
sented you with on your arrival was drawn from the 
fruit before it is ripe, and some of the nuts which 
contain it weigh three or four pounds. This kernel, 
so dehcate in its flavor, is the fruit when ripe. This 
milk, which you find so agreeable, is drawn from the 
nut ; this cabbage, whose flavor is so delicate, is the 
top of the cocoa-nut, but we rarely regale ourselves 
with this delicacy, for the tree from which the cab- 
bage is cut dies soon after. This wine, with which 
you are so satisfied, is still furnished by the cocoa- 
nut tree. In order to obtain it an incision is made 
into the spathe of the flowers. It flows from it in a 



32 THE PLANT WOULD. 

white liquor, which is gathered in proper vessels, and 
we call it palm wine ; exposed to the sun, it gets sour 
and turns to vinegar. By distillation we obtain this 
very good brandy which you have tasted. This sap 
has supplied the sugar with which these sweetmeats 
are made. These vessels and utensils have been made 
out of the shell of the nut. 

3. " Nor is this all ; this habitation itseK I owe 
entirely to these invaluable trees ; with their wood my 
cabin is constructed ; their leaves, dried and plaited, 
form the roof ; made into an umbrella, they shelter 
me from the sun in my walks ; the clothes which 
cover me are woven out of the fibers of their leaves. 
These mats, which serve so many useful purposes, are 
produced by them also. The sifter which you see was 
ready made to my hand in that part of the tree whence 
the leaves issue ; with these same leaves woven to- 
gether we can make sails for ships. The species of 
fiber that envelops the nut is much preferable to tow 
for calking ships ; it does not rot in the water, and 
it swells in imbibing it ; it makes excellent string, and 
all sorts of cable and cordage. Finally, the delicate 
oil that has seasoned many of our dishes, and that 
which burns in my lamp, are expressed from the fresh 
kernel." 

4. The stranger would listen with astonishment to 
the poor Indian, who having only his cocoa-nut tree, 
had nearly everything which was necessary for his 
existence. When the traveler was disposed to take 
his departure, his host again addressed him : " I am 
about to write to a friend I have in the city. May I 



THE BOTANIC GARDEN OF PAREDENIA. 33 

ask you to charge yourself with my communication ? " 
" Yes ; but will your cocoa-nut tree supply you with 
what you want?" "Certainly," said the Indian; 
" with the sawdust from the wood 1 made this ink, 
and with the leaves this parchment ; in former times 
it was used to record all public and memorable acts." 
BoNiFAs-GuizoT, " Botany for Youth." 



THE BOTANIC GAEDEIST OF PAEEDEl^IA. 

1. In the central province of Ceylon, 1,500 feet 
above the sea, hes the former capital of the island, the 
celebrated pity of Kandy, and but a few miles distant 
from it Paredenia, a small town that for a brief sea- 
son, five hundred years ago, likewise enjoyed the 
honor of being the regal residence of an ancient king. 
Here, in 1819, the English Government established a 
botanic garden, and intrusted Dr. Gardner with its 
management. His successor. Dr. Thwaites, the learned 
author of an excellent " Flora Ceylonica," for thirty 
years did everything in his power to raise the garden 
to a standard that would correspond with its pecuhar 
climatic and local advantages. On his retirement, a 
few years ago. Dr. Henry Trimen was appointed di- 
rector of the garden, and from this gentleman I re- 
ceived a cordial invitation to visit Paredenia. I 
accepted the kind invitation all the more readily, be- 
cause I had already in Europe heard and read a great 
deal about the splendid collection of rare plants in the 



34 



THE PLANT WORLD. 



Botanic Garden of Paredenia, and my great expecta- 
tions were not disappointed. If Ceylon is in truth a 
paradise for the botanist, as well as for every plant- 
friend, then Paredenia may justly be termed the heart 
of this botanical Eden. 

2. The entrance to the garden is through an avenue 
of noble India-rubber trees (Ficus elastica). This is 
the tree whose inspissated milk- sap forms the caout- 
chouc of commerce, and whose young plants are fre- 
quently seen in the greenhouses of our rugged north. 
While these India-rubber plants with us are objects 
of admiration when their slender stems grow to the 
height of the ceiling, and their few branches bear 
from fifty to one hundred leathery, egg-shaped leaves, 
here in their hot mother-country they develop into 
gigantic trees of the highest rank, and rival our proud- 
est European oaks. The immense crown of many 
thousands of leaves covers with its mighty branches 
(forty to fifty feet long) the superficial surface of a 
stately palace, while from the base of the thick trunk 
extends a network of roots that frequently measures 
from one hundred to two hundred feet in diameter — 
far more than the height of the tree itself. This as- 
tounding root crown consists mostly of twenty or 
thirty main roots, from each of which branch as many 
more — all of them curving and twisting over the 
ground like so many gigantic serpents, for which rea- 
son the Cingalese call it the " snake-tree," and poets 
at various times have likened it to the snake-entwined 
Laocoon. The spaces between the roots form verita- 
ble closets or sentry-boxes, in some of which a man 



THE BOTANIC GARDEN OF PAREDENIA. 35 

standing upright may effectually conceal himself. 
Similar root-columns are developed by other large 
trees of different orders. 

3. Scarcely had I expressed my admiration for 
this avenue of snake-trees, when my eyes were en- 
chained by another wonderful sight near the garden 
gate. There, as if to greet the new-comer, stood a 
huge bouquet of palms, composed of those species in- 
digenous to the island, and a number of foreign rep- 
resentatives of this noblest of tropical families ; gar- 
lands of lovely creepers festooned their crowns, while 
their stems were ornamented with the most exquisite 
parasitic ferns. .A similar but handsomer and more 
extensive group stands near the end of the main alley, 
and is encircled by a lovely wreath of flowering plants. 
Here the alley branched, the path on the left leading 
to a slight eminence on which stands the bungalow of 
the director. This enviable home is, like most Cey- 
lonese villas, a low, one-storied structure, encircled by 
an airy veranda whose wide, projecting roof is sup- 
ported by a row of white pillars. Roof and pillars 
are adorned with luxurious vines, large-flowered or- 
chids, odorous vanilla, showy fuchsias, and other bright 
flowers; choice collections of flowering plants and 
ferns embellish the garden beds which surround the 
house, and above them rise the shade-dispensing 
crowns of India's noblest trees. IS'umerous gorgeous 
butterflies and beetles, lizards and birds animate this 
charming picture. 

4. As the villa stands on the highest eminence in 
the garden, and the broad velvety lawn slopes away 



36 



THE PLANT WORLD. 



from it on every side, the view from the veranda em- 
braces a large portion of the garden with several of 
its most attractive tree-groups, and the belt of tall 
forest trees which incloses the meadow land. Beyond 
them rise the wooded summits of the mountain chain 
which encircles Paredenia valley. 

5. The Mahawelh-ganga flows in a wide, semi- 
circular sweep around the garden, and separates it- 
f rom yonder chain of . hills ; consequently it lies on a 
horseshoe-shaped peninsula whose land side, where it 
adjoins the Kandyan valley, is effectually protected 
by a tall, impenetrable hedge of bamboo, thorny rat- 
tan, and other equally formidable plants. As the cli- 
mate (at 1,500 feet above sea-level) is extraordinarily 
favorable, and the tropical heat of the sheltered valley, 
in conjunction with the copious rains which fall in 
the neighboring mountains, transform the Paredenia 
Garden into a natural forcing-house, it will be readily 
understood that the tropical flora here develops her 
wonderful productive power in the highest degree. 
My first ramble through the garden, in company with 
the well-informed director, convinced me that this 
was indeed the case ; and although I had read and 
heard so much about the wonderful attractions of the 
exuberant tropical vegetation, had longed for so many 
years to behold it with my own eyes, the actual reality, 
the actual enjoyment of the fabled glories, far sur- 
passed my highest expectations, and that, too, after I 
had been prepared by what I had seen in Bombay and 
Colombo. In the four days I spent at Paredenia I 
gained more information concerning the life and hab- 



THE BOTANIC GARDEN OF PAREDENIA. 3Y 

its of the plant world than I could have acquired at 
home in as many months by the most diligent botan- 
ical study. And when, two months later, I returned 
to the garden for a farewell visit, my delight was as 
great as when I first beheld its manifold attractions. 
I can not adequately express my gratitude for the 
courteous hospitality and wealth of information I re- 
ceived from my good friend Dr. Trimen. The seven 
days in his enchanting bungalow were, for me, seven 
veritable days of creation ! 

6. Vastly unlike most of the botanic gardens of 
Europe, whose stiff rows of beds remind one of files of 
soldiers, the Paredenia Garden (one hundred and fifty 
acres) is arranged with regard to aesthetic effect, as 
well as for the systematic classification of the plants. 
The principal tree-groups, and plants of kindred spe- 
cies, are tastefully distributed over grassy lawns, with 
pleasant paths leading from one to the other. In a 
more retired part of the garden are the less attractive 
beds for the cultivation of useful plants. Almost all 
the useful plants of the torrid zone (of both hemi- 
spheres) are here represented ; seeds, scions, and fruits 
of many of them are annually distributed among the 
planters and gardeners on the island. Thus the gar- 
den is not only an experimental station and acclimati- 
zation garden, but it has for years conferred important 
practical benefits on the colonists. 

7. If, among the many wonders in Paredenia Gar- 
den only a few are to be briefly noticed, then I shall 
begin with the celebrated giant bamboo, the astonish- 
ment and admiration of every visitor. Rambling from 



38 THE PLANT WORLD. 

the entrance gate toward the river and along its lovely 
bank, we see, while still at a distance, huge green 
bushes over one hundred feet high, and as many broad, 
which spread their plumed heads — ^like the feather 
brushes of giants — high above the river and the road, 
casting delightful shadows over both. Approaching 
nearer we see that this stupendous mass of verdure is 
composed of numerous (from eighty to one hundred) 
slender stems from one to two feet thick, which have 
sprung from a common root, and bear, on delicate, 
nodding branches dense clusters of the daintiest leaves. 
And these gigantic trees are nothing but grasses! 
Like all grass-stalks these prodigious tubes are jointed ; 
but the sheaf which, in the delicate species, is a thin 
small scale at the base of the leaf is, in this bamboo 
giant, a firm woody partition that, without further 
preparation, might serve as a shield for the breast of 
a vigorous man. A child of three years might hide 
in one of the joints ! As is well known, the bamboo 
belongs to the useful plants of the tropics ; but to 
fully describe the manifold uses to which these tree- 
grasses — as well as the palms — are turned to account 
by the natives would fill a whole volume. 

8. JSText to the bamboos — or, indeed, before them 
— come the palms. Besides the orders indigenous to 
the island, we find here a number of palms that are 
natives of the mainland of India, the Sunda Islands, 
Australia, and tropical America — as, for instance, the 
Livistonia chinensis, with its huge crown of fan- 
shaped leaves ; the celebrated Lodoicea from the 
Seychelles, with its colossal fans ; the Eloeis, or oil- 



1 



THE BOTANIC GARDEN OF PAREDENIA. 39 

palm of Gruinea, with its long, plume-like foliage ; tlie 
famous Mauritia from Brazil ; the lofty Areodoxa, or 
king's palm, from Havana, etc. Of the latter I ad- 
mired and sketched, on Teneriffe (1866), a splendid 
specimen, and was therefore not a little surprised and 
delighted to behold here a whole avenue of the stately 
trees. No less interesting were splendid groups of 
thorny climbing palms or rattans ( Calamus) with deli- 
cate, vibrating leaves ; their slender but firm and elas- 
tic stems climb to the tops of the highest trees, often 
attaining a length of three or four hundred feet. 
They belong to the longest of all land plants. 

9. One of the most attractive parts of Paredenia 
is the fern garden. In the dense shade of tall trees 
along the cool banks of a murmuring brook is assem- 
bled a company of small and large, delicate and vig- 
orous, herbaceous and arboreous ferns, such as it would 
be impossible to imagine any more charming and 
agreeable. The entire charm of form which distin- 
guishes the dainty feathery foliage of our native ferns 
is here displayed in an endless variety of different spe- 
cies, from the simplest to the most complex; and 
while some of the pretty little dwarf ferns might 
easily be confounded with dainty mosses, the giant 
tree-ferns, whose slim, black stems bear a lovely crown 
of feathery leaves, attain the proud height of the 
palm. 

10. Like the ferns, the fern-palms, or Cycadece^ as 
well as the dainty selanginella and lycopodia families, 
are represented in Paredenia by choice collections of 
the most interesting species, from the most minute, 



40 THE PLANT WORLD. 

moss-like forms to the robust shrub sorts that ahnost 
remind one of the extinct tree-ljcopodia of the Stone- 
coal period. Indeed, many plant-groups in this gar- 
den recall to mind the fossil flora so admirably por- 
trayed by linger in his views from an antediluvian 
world. If, in conclusion, but two more plant orders, 
which are of pecuHar interest to me, are to be intro- 
duced to your notice, then the first shall be the 
lianas, and the second the banyans. Although creep- 
ing and climbing plants are abundant everywhere on 
the island, the Paredenia G-arden contains several 
splendid examples, the like of which are rarely found ; 
for instance, colossal vines of the Yitis, Cissus, Pur- 
tada, Bignonia, Ficus, etc. Also the banyans, and 
several kindred fig-trees {Ficus galaxifera^ etc.), are 
the finest, most magnificent tree-forms I saw on Ceylon. 
Ernst Haeckel, " India and Ceylon." 



THE BAMBOO. 

1. ]!^EXT to the palms, the bamboo tribe claims pre- 
cedence among the plants of India, both by its variety 
of form and its great numbers. According to Zollin- 
ger's table of the different Javanese species, certain 
kinds which grow to the height of more than ninety 
feet, individual examples one hundred and thirty feet 
high have been measured, but the average height varies 
between twenty and fifty feet. The prickly bamboo 
does not grow so high, but twines closely round the 



THE BAMBOO. 41 

nearest stem, and forms an impenetrable jungle or 
bush. The thickness of the stem varies between 
about twelve inches and the tenth of an inch. The 
color of the leaves shades from bright green to a pale 
yellow tint. The climbing hanas, for instance, the 
Dinochioa, which resembles the rotang palm in its 
circular formation, hangs down its graceful branches 
tipped \vdth a feathery tuft of leaves. The slenderer 
forms put out fresh growth at the summit of the 
stem, 'which hardens by the amount of silica which it 
contains, and is covered with joints from which short 
branches tipped ^vith leaves are put forth all the way 
down the stem. ^ When they are joined together, they 
shoot upward hke a gigantic cane bush, and at last 
bend down on all sides in gently curving arches to 
the ground. Their social life, the close disposition of 
the stems which sway with a soft rustling murmur at 
every breath of wind, the dead leaves which cover 
every inch of the soil, exclude all other kinds of 
vegetation from the interior of a bamboo jungle. 
When the water supply is abundant, the growth of 
the bamboo increases with almost mii-aculous speed, 
60 that m a few days the stem gains several feet, and 
lengthens as it were visibly before the eye ; it is nev- 
ertheless able to support the interruption caused by 
long seasons of drought, and is therefore equally at 
home m the swampy forest as in the parched savan- 
nas. The largest bamboo indigenous to Siam devel- 
ops its sheaf of stem of eighty-two to ninety-eight 
feet high in the space of three or four months, and 
then begins to fade in the dry season, and sinks to the 



42 THE PLANT WORLD. 

ground. A tropical climate is not an absolute neces- 
sity for the growth of the bamboo, some of which 
are seen in Sikkim at a height reaching to the hmit 
of tree growth. 

2. The numberless ways in which the bamboo en- 
ters into the national life of the countries where it is 
found have attracted the attention of every traveler. 
The longer he sojourns in Eastern lands, the greater is 
his astonishment at the myriad purposes to which cer- 
tain plants are applied by the Orientals. In the first 
rank among these necessaries of Eastern life come the 
cocoa-palm and the bamboo. The Javanese builds 
his house of bamboo ; every article of household fur- 
niture is made of the same material ; he lights a fire 
of bamboo, and over it he cooks his rice in a bamboo 
dish, which is charred but not destroyeu in the pro- 
cess. Yery possibly the dish may contain, instead of 
rice, some young shoots of the bamboo, which form a 
tender and succulent vegetable. Sometimes no other 
material is seen in a whole village ; the fairy -like pali- 
sading which incloses it, and the gates themselves, are 
all made of bamboo. 

3. The prickly bamboo, a species which grows to 
the height of thirty-nine feet, in thick bush branches 
covered with formidable thorns, forms a rampart 
hardly to be broken through, even by the aid of artil- 
lery ; so that the Dutch, taught by their experience in 
Sumatra, always plant it round their fortresses. The 
sportsman and the soldier use it for lances, arrows, 
and a blow-pipe, by means of which poisoned arrows 
are shot. It is constantly employed to form bridges, 



MARINE PLANTS. - 43 

and it provides the fisherman with incomparable rafts, 
masts, and creels. In China nearly all the paper is 
manufactured from bamboo, even paper used in Eu- 
rope for art printing. The canes in use among us are 
bamboos, while the cane employed for chairs, etc., is 
obtained from palms, natives of the East Indies, espe- 
cially the Calamios rotang and Calamus -verus. To 
add one more use to which the inexhaustible bamboo 
may be put, we may mention that a wedge-shaped 
piece of the cane cut the cross way of the stem, so 
that the sharp edge is formed of the outer silicious 
stratum, makes a knife good enough to be even used 
in surgical operations. 

Anonymous, " Wonders in Living Nature." 

1/ 



MAEI^E PLAINTS. 

1. The dry land develops the most exuberant 
vegetation on the lowest grounds, the plains, and deep 
valleys, and the size and multiplicity of plants gradu- 
ally diminish as we ascend the higher mountain re- 
gions, until at last merely naked or snow-covered rocks 
raise their barren pinnacles to the skies ; but the con- 
trary takes place in the realms of ocean, for here the 
greater depths are completely denuded of vegetation, 
and it is only within six hundred or eight hundred 
feet from the surface that the calcareous nuUipores 
begin to cover the sea-bottom, as mosses and lichens 
clothe the lofty mountain-tops. Gradually corallines 



44 THE PLANT WORLD. 

and a few algae associate with them, until finally about 
eighty or one hundred feet from the surface begins 
the rich vegetable zone which encircles the margin of 
the sea. The plants of which it is corny osed do not 
indeed attain the same high degree of development as 
those of the dry land, being deprived of the beauties 
of fl.ower and fruit ; but as the earth at different 
heights and latitudes constantly changes her verdant 
robe, and raises our highest admiration by the endless 
diversity of her ornaments, thus also the forms of the 
sea-plants change, whether we descend from the brink 
of ocean to a greater depth, or wander along the coast 
from one sea to another ; and their delicate fronds are 
as remarkable for beauty of color and elegance of out- 
line as the leaves of terrestrial vegetation. 

2. The difference of the mediums in which land- 
and sea-plants exist naturally requires a different mode 
of nourishment, the former principally using their 
roots to extract from a varying soil the substances 
necessary for their perfect growth, while the latter 
absorb nourishment through their entire surface from 
the surrounding waters, and use their roots chiefly as 
holdfasts. 

3. The constituent parts of the soil are of the 
greatest importance to land-plants, to whose organiza- 
tion they are made to contribute ; while to the sea- 
plant it is generally indifferent whether the ground to 
which it is attached be granite, chalk, slate, or sand- 
stone, provided only its roots find a safe anchorage 
against the unruly waters. 

4. Flat rocky coasts, not too much exposed to the 



MARINE PLANTS. 45 

swell of the waves, and interspersed with deep pools 
in which the water is constantly retained, are thus the 
favorite abode of most algge, while a loose sandy sea- 
bottom is generally as poor in vegetation as the Ara- 
bian desert. 

5. But even on sandy shores extensive submarine 
meadows are frequently formed by the grass wrack 
{Zostera marina\ whose creeping stems, rooting at the 
joints and extending to a considerable depth in the 
sand, are adirdrably adapted for securing a firm posi- 
tion on the loose ground. Its long ribbon -like leaves, 
of a brilliant and glossy green, wave freely in the 
water, and afford shelter and nourishment to numerous 
marine animals and plants. In the tropical seas it 
forms the submarine meadows on which the turtles 
graze, and in the north of Europe it is used for the 
manufacture of cheap bedding. It also furnishes an 
excellent material for packing brittle ware. 

6. Sea-weeds are usually classed in three great 
groups — green, olive-colored, and red; and these 
again are subdivided into numerous families, genera, 
and species. 

7. On the British coast alone about four hundred 
different species are found, and hence we may form 
some idea of the riches of the submarine flora. Thou- 
sands of algge are known and classified, but no doubt 
as many more at least still wait for their botanical 
names, and have never yet been seen by human eye. 

8. The green sea- weeds, or Chlorospermece, gener- 
ally occur near high-water mark, and love to lead an 
amphibious life, half in the air and half in salt-water. 



46 THE PLANT WORLD. 

The delicate EnteromorphcB, similar to threads of fine 
silk, and the broad brilliant Vlvoe, which frequently 
cover the smooth bowlders with a glossy vesture of 
lively green, belong to this class. . Many of them are 
remarkable for their wide geographical distribution. 
Thus the Ulva latissima and the Enteromorphoj 00771- 
jpressa of our shores thrive also in the cold waters of 
the Arctic Sea, fringe the shores of the tropical ocean,^ 
and project into the southern hemisphere as far as the 
desolate head-lands of Tierra del Fuego. But few 
animals or plants possess so pliable a nature, and such 
adaptability to the most various climates. 

9. The ohve-colored group of sea-weeds, or Me- 
lanospermem^ plays a much more considerable part in 
the economy of the ocean. The common fuci, which 
on the ebbing of the tide impart to the shore cliffs 
their peculiar dingy color, belong to this class ; as 
well as the mighty LaminaricB^ which, about the level 
of ordinary low water and one or two fathoms below 
that limit, fringe the rocky shore with a broad belt 
of luxuriant vegetation. 

10. The first olive-colored sea- weed we meet with 
on the receding of the fiood is the small and slender 
FuGus canaliculatus^ easily known by its narrow 
grooved stems and branches and the absence of air- 
vessels. Then follows Fucus nodosus, a large species, 
with tough thong-like stems, expanding at intervals 
into knob-like air-vessels, and covered in winter and 
spring with bright yellow berries. Along with it we 
find the gregarious Fucus vesicidosus, with its forked 
leaf traversed by a midrib, and covered with numer- 



MARINE PLANTS. 47 

OTIS air-vessels situated in pairs at eacli side of the rib. 
Finally, about the level of half -tide, a fourth species 
of fucus' appears, Fugus serratus^ distinguished from 
all the rest by its toothed margin and the absence of 
air-vessels. 

11. These four species generally occupy the litto- 
ral zone of our sea-girt isle, being found in greatest 
^^bundance on flat, rocky shores, particularly on the 
western coasts of Scotland and Ireland, where they 
used formerly to be burned in large quantities for the 
manufacture of kelp or carbonate of soda, which is 
now obtained by a less expensive process. In Orcadia 
alone more than twenty thousand persons were em- 
ployed during the whole summer in the collection and 
incineration of sea-weeds, a valuable resource for the 
poverty-stricken islanders, of which they have been 
deprived by the progress of chemical science. 

12. The fuci are, however, still largely used, either 
burned or in a fermented state, as a valuable manure 
for green crops. Thus every year several small ves- 
sels are sent from Jersey to the coast of Brittany to 
fetch cargoes of sea-weeds for the farmers of that 
island. 

13. The largest of indigenous sea-weeds are the 
Lamina/ria saccharina and digitata, or the sugary and 
fingered oar-weeds. Their stout woody stems and 
broad, tough, glossy leaves of dark olive-green, often 
twelve or fourteen feet long, must be familiar to 
every one who has sojourned on the coast. When 
gliding over their submerged groves in a boat, their 
great fronds floating like streamers in the water aflord 



48 THE PLANT WORLD. 

the interesting spectacle of a dense submarine thicket, 
through whose palm-Kke tops the fishes swim in and 
out, emulating in activity the birds of our forests. 

14. But our native oar- weeds, large as they seem 
with regard to the other fuci among which they grow, 
are mere pygmies when compared with the gigantic 
species which occur in the colder seas. 

vl5. None of the members of this family grow in 
the tropical waters, but they extend to the utmost 
polar limits, and seem to increase in size and multi- 
plicity of form as they advance to the higher latitudes. 
The northern hemisphere has generally different gen- 
era from the southern. To the former belong the 
gigantic Alarias with their often forty feet long and 
several feet broad fronds, the singularly perforated 
.Thalassophyta, and the far-spreading Nereocystis, 
which is only found in the l^orthern Pacific ; while 
the genera Macrocystis and Lessonia are denizens of 
the Southern Ocean. 

G. Hartwig, " The Sea and its Living Wonders." 



DIFFUSION OF PLANTS. 

1. As the earth does not bring forth in every place 
all the plants which could hve upon its surface, so the 
several kinds of animals have a definite and probably 
for the most part a very limited territory allotted to 
them for their reproduction ; but animals and plants 
have ventured to overstep these narrow limits, and 



DIFFUSIOX OF PLAXTS. 49 

win for themselves large tracts of tlie earth's snrface 
outside the boundaries of their original birthplace. 

2. Chained to its clod of earth, and incapable of 
altering its localitT at Avill, the plant is apparently 
helpless ; bnt it has powerfnl allies, of which the most 
important are wind, water, and animals. For the 
present we will not speak of culture and acclimatiza- 
tion, by which men foster and promote the growth of 
certain foreign plants. Marvelous are the contrivances 
by which Xature herself provides for the wide distri- 
bution of seeds. Somotimes the fruit, sometimes the 
seeds, are furnished with wings or hairy crowns, by 
which the wind may carry them far and wide, ^e 
have only to remember these contrivances, as shown 
in the dandelion, elm, poplar, and maple. Sometimes 
the plants open with an elastic movement, and scatter 
their o^vn seed, as in the case of balsams, wood-sorrel, 
and a kind of cucumber {EcbaUium officinale). TVe 
must not forget to mention the tenacity of life pos- 
sessed by the seed. 

3. In the year 1176. at Linz on the Ehine, some 
of the Crejjis jjulchra^ a flower extremely rare in Ger- 
many, and which had certainly not been seen at Linz 
within the last twenty years, was found in some earth 
which had been dug out of the church in the preced- 
ing year ; so that the seed must have slept for many 
years in the ground, and yet retained its germinating 
power. In a similar manner there appeared suddenlv 
near the old mines of Mount Laurion, in Attica, the 
plants Glau^iurn serpien and Silene jiivetialis — plants 
entirely unknown, or at least never seen in that neis^h- 



50 THE PLANT WORLD. 

borhood. These seeds had lain buried for an indefi- 
nite length of time three yards below the surface, and 
were brought to light by the workmen who were pre- 
paring to extend the mines. This long sleep of the 
seeds, a sleep which it is thought may last for cen- 
turies, explains how it is that tunnelings and railway 
cuttings are often the scenes of valuable discoveries of 
new and rare plants, the seed buried for years in the 
earth being unintentionally and unconsciously dug out 
by the hand of man. 

4. Other plants follow the courses of rivers and 
running streams, by which their seeds are carried 
down into suitable places. Thus the (Enothera bien- 
nis^ a native of Virginia, is said to have reached Padua 
in 1612, and spread thence throughout Europe ; and 
this flower is much more abundant on the shores of 
the middle and lower Rhine than in the adjoining 
sandy plains, which are equally suited for its growth. 
Another example is given by the Collomia gro/ndiflora, 
a herb belonging to ]!^orth America, which was sud- 
denly found in the year 1855 on the banks of the Ahr, 
near Ahrweiler. It is not known how it reached the 
spot, but in 185Y it was found already at the mouth of 
the Ahr, and in 1862 on the banks of the Ehine, near 
Bonn; so that in the course of seven years it had 
spread along forty miles of the river banks, notwith- 
standing the unwearied efforts of the students of Botm 
to uproot it and transfer it by handfuls to their her- 
baria. 

5. Animals are of great use in furthering the dis- 
tribution of plants. Yery many fruits and seeds are 



DIFFUSION OF PLANTS. 51 

carried bodily away by being caught and fastened 
with thorns and brambles in the fleece of woolly ani- 
mals. The seeds of many Australian plants, for in- 
stance, have been carried to Europe in the fleeces of 
Austrahan sheep. Many animals eat berries without 
destroying the seed, which passes through them unin- 
jured. The seed so sown is so far from having less- 
ened its powers of fructification that, in the opinion 
of Altum, it must have been specially intended to be 
prepared for sowing in that manner. It is known also 
that, to the great annoyance of the Dutch Trading 
Company, the pigeons who fed on the valuable Muscat 
nuts in the Moluccas transplanted it with increased 
powers of germination,, increased by its passage 
through their bodies, although it is said to have pre- 
viously defied every method of artificial cultivation. 
The seeds of the white thorn do not germinate until 
they have lain buried in the earth for a whole year ; 
but if turkeys are fed with the seed in autumn, and 
the birds' manure sown, the seeds will come up in the 
following spring. 

6.- There is no doubt, then, that many plants have 
been distributed in this manner by the aid of birds. 
While some plants spread abroad to almost incredible 
distances in the course of time, others seem bound to 
one narrow home ; for instance, a member of the palm 
tribe {Lodoicea sechellavum)^ which grows only in two 
of the Seychelle Islands. Its fruits are often carried 
by the ocean currents to the Maldives, where they are 
known as Maldive nuts, and their great size and mys- 
terious appearance on the shore gave rise to number- 



52 THE PLANT WORLD. 

less fantastic suppositions until their true home was 
discovered. One of the most effectual barriers against 
the complete and wholesale intermingling of plants is 
the sea, for although its currents tend to spread them 
abroad, its great extent hinders their passage to the 
opposite shore. The greater the distance between two 
coasts the more sharply sundered is their vegetation. 
'Next to the sea, the great desert wastes, such as that 
of Sahara, act as barriers, and the inaccessible forests 
of tropical America divide the floras of the adjoining 
countries. In ordinary cases, however, the changes of 
climate are sufficient to preserve the distinct character 
of the natural flora, and the high peaks of mountains, 
like those of the European Alps, form a limit to the 
exchange of neighboring vegetation. 

Anonymous, '' Wonders in Living Nature." 



AIJTUMlsr. 



1. With what a glory comes and goes the year ! 
The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers 
Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy 
Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out ; 
And when the silver habit of the clouds 
Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with 
A sober gladness the old year takes up 
His bright inheritance of golden fruits, 
A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene. 




The Breadfruit Tree. 



THE BREAD-FRUIT-TREE. 53 

2. There is a beautiful spirit breathing now 
Its mellow richness on the clustered trees, 
And from a beaker full of richest dyes, 
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods^ 
And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds. 

3. Oh, what a glory doth this world put on 
For him who with a fervent heart goes forth 
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks 
On duties well performed, and days well spent ! 
For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves, 
Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings. 
He shall so hear the solemn hymn that Death 
Has lifted up for all, that he shall go 

To his long resting-place without a tear. 

Longfellow. 



THE BEEAD-FEIJIT-TEEE. 

1. Among the examples which in a special degree 
attest the watchful care of Providence, we have to 
mention that of the bread-tree, discovered in the 
isles of Oceania. This invaluable tree belongs to the 
genus Artocarpus^ of the fig family. The leaves in 
this family are simple, plain, or serrated, and the flow- 
ers very small and imperfect, some having no corolla, 
and others no calyx, but all appearing alike upon the 
same tree at the extremities of the branches. 



54 THE PLANT WORLD. 

2. The true bread-tree lias indented or serrated 
leaves. We saj the true bread-tree, for this genus 
embraces many other species, which, in spite of a very 
remarkable organization, do not possess the properties 
of the one we have mentioned. Thus there is an 
Artocarpus incisa^ with small leaves and flowers, but 
bearing fruits which are, perhaps, the largest borne 
by any tree on earth. These round fruits are some- 
times so large that a man can not lift them ! The 
kernels are eaten, roasted like chestnuts, but they are 
not easily digestible. Then there is the Jack (Arto- 
carpus integrifolia\ of the Indian Archipelago, with 
a huge trunk, and dense foliage on the broad-branch- 
ing summit, while the fruit measures eighteen inches 
by fifteen. Travelers are not agreed as to the merits 
of the latter. Rheede says they have an agreeable 
taste and odor, but Commerson could not summon 
courage even to put a morsel of it in his mouth. 
" Tastes differ," but it seems difficult to explain such 
contradictory opinions, unless it should be that these 
travelers speak of such trees as certain critics are said 
to judge of works which they have never seen. A 
third species is the Artooarpus hirsuta, the tallest of 
the genus. Its wood is used in carpentry and in boat- 
building. The Indians hollow out the trunk to make 
\hQ\T piraguas^ some of which measure eighty feet in 
length by nine in width, and thus enable them to 
make long ocean voyages. 

3. We return to the true bread-fruit-tree. The 
discoveries in Oceania have rendered it celebrated, 
and special expeditions have been undertaken for the 



THE BREAD-FRUIT-TREE. 55 

purpose of obtaining roots for transplantation to dif- 
ferent parts of the Old and New World. We shall 
presently notice the most remarkable of these expedi- 
tions. The following are the distinctive characteris- 
tics of this tree : The trunk is straight, as thick as a 
man's body, and rises in a gentle spiral to the height 
of about forty feet. Its large round top covers with 
its shadow a space thirty feet in diameter. The wood 
is yellowish, soft, and light; the leaves, one and a 
half feet long and one foot wide, large and permeated 
with seven or eight lobes, a form which characterizes 
this species. The same branch bears male and female 
flowers. The bread obtained from the tree is its 
globular fruit, larger than a child's head, weighing 
three to four pounds, rough on the outside, and cov- 
ered with hair. The thick green rind incloses a pnlp, 
which, during the month that precedes maturity, is 
white, farinaceous, and slightly fibrous ; but when ripe, 
changes in color and consistency, and becomes yellow 
and succulent or gelatinous. The island of Otaheite 
abounds in the best kind of these trees, which bear 
fruit without seed ; the other islands of Oceanica pro- 
duce varieties of less valuable bread-fruit, containing 
angular seeds almost as large as chestnuts. 

4. The fruit of this tree ripens during eight con- 
secutive months in the year. The islanders live upon 
it, as we do upon our manufactured bread ; it is their 
main food, and I^ature, as we see, furnishes it to them 
without their being put to the trouble of cultivating 
the ground, of sowing, reaping, thrashing, grinding, 
or baking. To have their " fresh bread " they choose 



56 THE PLANT WORLD. 

the time when the pulp is farinaceous, which they can 
tell bj the green color of the rind. The necessary 
preparation " for the table " is accomplished by cut- 
ting them in thick slices and cooking them upon a 
charcoal fire ; when ready, each " loaf " weighs about 
a pound. They are sometimes also placed upon a 
heated oven, as we do with pastry, and left there 
until the rind begins to blacken. Then the burnt part 
is scraped clean, as your toast, and the interior is 
white, ready to be eaten, tender as the crumbs of 
French rolls, but little differing in taste from wheaten 
bread, except only a slight flavor suggestive of the 
inside of an artichoke. As the natives want bread 
throughout the whole year, they take advantage of 
the time when the fruits are abundant, and prepare 
from the pulp of the surplus fruit a paste which, after 
being fermented, can be kept a long time without 
turning sour. During the four months when the 
trees do not yield, the natives hve upon this prepa- 
ration. 

5. The expedition to which we referred was that 
made by Captain Bligh, sent in search of the bread- 
tree of Otaheite for the purpose of introducing it into 
the tropical colonies of Great Britain to furnish food 
for the slaves. The narratives of Cook and other ex- 
plorers had encouraged the highest expectations of 
the benefits which would result from the culture of 
the bread-fruit-tree. The English colonists having 
entreated their government to obtain for them this 
wonderful tree, a vessel specially fitted for the pur- 
pose was got ready and placed under the command of 



THE BREAD-PRUIT-TREE. 57 

Bligh, then only a lieutenant, but afterward an admi- 
ral. The selection of the commander was judicious, 
for Bligh had accompanied Cook in his voyages, and 
given on many occasions proof of his talents and his 
gallantry. Leaving England in 1787, the expedition 
arrived in six months at Otaheite. The islanders re- 
ceived them hospitably ; more than a thousand plants 
were put in pots and boxes and taken on board, with 
a sufficient quantity of fresh water to keep them alive, 
and five months afterward the precious cargo was 
floating toward its destination. But, in spite of all 
the happy auspices under which the return voyage 
was begun, it had an unfortunate ending. It fur- 
nished one of those examples, happily rare, of the 
revolt of a crew and the desperate position of a cap- 
tain left to the mercy of the mutineers in the midst 
of the silent ocean. ^ Twenty -two days after they had 
left Otaheite the greater part of the crew, having joined 
in a most cowardly plot, seized Bligh during the night 
and placed him with the eighteen that remained faith- 
ful to him in a long boat with some provisions and 
instruments, and, leaving them alone in the middle 
of the ocean, sailed off and were soon out of sight. 
Bligh and his companions bore up with superhuman 
courage in the midst of their fatigue and sufferings ; 
only one succumbed. They arrived at the island 
of Timor, after having sailed the distance of thirty- 
six hundred nautical miles in the longboat. The 
Dutch governor recei^^ed them kindly, and soon 
twelve of them were able to take passage to Ireland. 
Bligh obtained justice in England-; he was immedi- 



58 THE PLANT WORLD. 

ately promoted to tlie rank of captain and placed in 
charge of a new and larger expedition. This time he 
succeeded completely, and two years after the two 
vessels of the expedition landed in the British West 
Indies, having on board twelve hundred plants of the 
bread-fruit-tree, and without having lost a single man 
of either of the crews. 

6. The slaves of the West Indies did not show as 
much alacrity in making use of the fruit as had been 
expected, preferring their familiar food, the banana ; 
on the other hand, the Europeans accepted it with 
great pleasure. It ought to be stated, however, that 
the slaves ate the fruit without having previously pre- 
pared it, while the Europeans cooked it according to 
the best receipts of English writers. 

Y. The old people of Otaheite attribute the origin 
of the bread-fruit -tree to an incident which is em- 
bodied in a touching legend. At a time of great 
scarcity, a father assembled his numerous children 
upon the mountains and said to them : " You will in- 
ter me in this place ; but you will find me again on 
the morrow." The children obeyed, and, coming on 
the following day as they had been commanded, they 
were much surprised to see that the body of their 
father had been transformed into a great tree. His 
toes had stretched out to form the roots ; his power- 
ful and robust body had furnished the trunk; his 
outstretched arms were changed into branches, and 
his hands into leaves. His bald head finally had 
disappeared, and a delicious fruit was found in its 
place. 



ox THE CSES OF PLANTS. 59 

8. This legend recalls the seventh circle of the 
Inferno of Dante, ^here the souls who had been vio- 
lent upon earth are seen changed into hving trees, 
while their hmbs writhe and twist like the branches 
of dead trees. Bnt we prefer the simple legend of 
the primitive isles to- the gloomy imagination of the 
great Itahan. The poet speaks of the dead ; the island- 
ers appeal to the living. 

FuLGE>'CE Marion, " The Wonders of Vegetation." 



Oi^ THE USES OF PLAXTS. 

1. How manv important and varied services are 
rendered to ns by plants ! Either directly or indi- 
rectly, all animals are nourished by plants ; indeed, 
there is an immense number of animated beings that 
eat nothing bnt vegetable substances, and those that 
feed upon meat would not find sufficient food, unless 
they devoured each other, without destroying those 
that are maintained on veo;etable food exclusivelv. 
There is scarcely a plant that does not nourish some 
animal ; almost all insects, for example, live either in 
the perfect or in the larva state, at the expense of the 
plant upon which they are habitually found ; and even 
in the hio-hest classes of the animal king-rlom the num- 
ber of phytivorous species is immense, for the quad- 
rumana, the gnawers, the pachyderms, and the rumi- 
nants all observe a vegetable diet ; and man himself 
derives most of his food from the vegetable kingdom. 



60 THE PLANT WORLD. 

2. Among the most important alimentary plants, 
the first are the cereals. Under this name we desig- 
nate plants of the family of grasses, which afford 
nourishment to man and most domestic animals; 
namely, wheat, rye, barley, oats, maize, and rice. 
There is in the interior of their seed, between the 
spermoderm and the embryo, a considerable deposit 
of amylaceous matter, designed to nourish the young 
plant, and designated by botanists under the name of 
albumen or perisperm ; it is this matter we use for 
food. The perisperm of the cereals, and consequently 
the flour obtained by grinding them, is essentially 
composed of fecula or starch, ordinarily mixed with a 
certain quantity of a substance named gluten, which 
considerably resembles animal matter. Wheat flour 
contains more gluten than any other, and for this rea- 
son it makes better bread and is more nutritious ; rye 
also contains it, but there is none in rice, oats, etc. 

3. Other plants also furnish abundance of fecula, 
but not from the same part as in those mentioned ; 
sometimes it is in the cotyledons of the seed, some- 
times in tubercles, and at other times in the very sub- 
stance of the stems or roots ; thus, peas and beans and 
some other plants of the family of Leguminosm fur- 
nish edible seeds, the cotyledons of which contain the 
same as the albumen of the cereals — a great deal of 
fecula and a certain quantity of gluten mixed with 
sugar and some other matters. Whatever part this 
fecula may occupy, it in general constitutes, as in the 
pericarp of the cereals, depositories of nutritive mat- 
ter for the nourishment of the young plant or of new 



ON THE USES OF PLANTS. 61 

shoots. The tubers of the potato owe their nutritious 
qualities to the quantity of f ecula they contain ; the 
same is true of batatas (the Spanish or sweet potato), 
a species of convolvulus, originally from India, which 
is now cultivated in all warm regions in the world. 
The species of f ecula, known under the name of cassava 
or tapioca, of which great use is made in the West 
Indies, is derived from the root of the manioc, a plant 
of the family of Euphorhiaceoe^ which also contains a 
very poisonous juice that is separated by means of 
water. Sago is another species of f ecula obtained 
from the stem of a palm, and salep is also a f ecula 
obtained from the stems of a monocotyledonous plant 
of the family of Orchidece. 

4. The most esteemed of our fruits, the majority 
of them at least, are furnished by the family of 
Rosacem ; for example, apples, pears, plums, cherries, 
peaches, apricots, strawberries, raspberries ; and to 
complete the list of fruit trees we must not omit the 
mention of some species of the family of Ampelidece 
and the family of AurcmtiaceoB ; namely, the vine, the 
orange, and the citron. 

5. Plants furnish us not only with wholesome and 
agreeable food, but also substances which are of the 
greatest utility in the manufacture of clothing and in 
the construction of our dwellings. Hemp, flax, and 
cotton yield us long, flexible filaments, which consti- 
tute excellent materials for spinning and weaving; 
and our forest trees, almost all of which belong to the 
family of Citpuliferce^ or that of the ConiferoB^ furnish 
abundance of wood for building our houses and ships, 



62 THE PLANT WORLD. 

as well as for the manufacture of furniture and instru- 
ments of various kinds. 

6. Ornamental plants which decorate our gardens 
and conservatories are very numerous ; they are fur- 
nished by very various families, in the front rank of 
which we may place the RosacecB^ because it has for 
its type one of our most beautiful flowers, the rose. 
Many species and varieties of rose-trees are known, 
and almost all of them may be cultivated in the open 
air in our climate ; they flourish besst in a light soil 
and partial exposure to the sun. In the wild state 
they have but ^y^ petals, in the midst of which we 
observe a great number of stamens ; but cultivation 
has transformed most of these latter organs into petals, 
and enhanced the beauty of the flowers. The dahlia, 
which was for some years so rare, but now everywhere 
met in gardens, belongs to the family of Synmitherece ; 
this beautiful herbaceous plant has a perennial root 
composed of bundles of horizontal, oblong tubercles, 
from which rises a cylindrical, branching stem, bear- 
ing opposite leaves and large flowers, which appear 
from the end of July till the approach of frost. The 
dahlia may be multiplied by its seeds or by the divi- 
sion of its roots. The genus Aster, which comprises 
a great number of« beautiful autumnal flowers, includ- 
ing the Queen Margaret, which was imported from 
China into Europe about a hundred years ago, also 
belongs to the family of Synam^therece. 

7. While a great many plants afford to man whole- 
some and abundant food, others are violent poisons to 
him, though very many even of the latter are useful, 



SOME WONDERFUL GARDENS. 63 

because when prudently administered they constitute 
powerful medicines.. A great number of plants of 
the family of Solanem are of this kind ; for example, 
belladonna, henbane, stramonium, tobacco ; some spe- 
cies of the family of PajpOA^eraceoe^ such as the poppies ; 
and hemlock, which belongs to the UmbellifGrw^ etc. 
In our citation of poisonous plants we must not omit 
the mushrooms. 

W. S. W. RuscHENBERGER, " Elements of Botany." 



SOME WOl^DEEFUL GAEDEl^S. 

1. The first thing man did when he was placed on 
this earth was to keep a garden. And although he 
proved an unfaithful gardener in this instance, it 
would seem that his taste for horticulture has al- 
ways remained a prominent passion. Whether the 
products were objects of utility or beauty, he sought 
for the most perfect method of tilling the earth, and 
from the earliest times of civilization or national re- 
finement gardening was a practiced art. The story of 
that first Eden seems to have haunted the imagina- 
tions of men, and legends of various forms have come 
down of that primeval home of the race. The Greek 
poets celebrated the gardens of the Hesperides, which 
they located near the Atlas Mountains in the Barbary 
States. In it were orchards of trees, that bore golden 
apples, which were guarded by a sleepless dragon with 
a hundred heads. The garden was walled in with 



64 THE PLANT WORLD. 

brazen gates, and was under the special protection of 
Juno, the queen of heaven. It was one of the twelve 
labors of Hercules to secure these golden apples, an 
exploit that he performed by putting the hundred- 
headed dragon to sleep. 

2. Almost as celebrated in Greek story were the 
gardens of the Phseacian Prince Alcinous at Scheria, 
whose charms are related by Homer in Book Seventh 
of the " Odyssey " in some of his most exquisite hex- 
ameters. These gardens occupied about four acres of 
ground, and were fenced with a hedge or green in- 
closure. Every fruit and flower known to the Greeks 
bloomed and ripened in that favored retreat. To 
Ulysses, on his arrival at the palace of the Phgeacian 
king, the gardens seemed like paradise. Two plen- 
teous fountains irrigated the grounds, and the poet 
glows rapturously over its tossing fruit-laden boughs 
and its summery, shady bowers. 

3. Among other famous Greek gardens were thos^ 
of the Phrygian Prince Midas in Macedonia, cele- 
brated for their roses with a hundred leaves, which 
Xerxes visited upon his invasion of Greece ; and those 
of the Ilissus, at Athens, founded by Pisistratus 540 
B. c, which were the first public gardens that we read 
of among the ancients. 

4. Perhaps the most wonderful of all the wonder- 
ful gardens of the world were the hanging gardens 
of Babylon, built by J^ebuchadnezzar. He reigned 
six hundred years before our Christian era, and was 
the greatest monarch and builder of his time. He 
erected grand public works at his capital, which be- 



SOME WONDERFUL GARDENS. 65 

came wonders of the world, and he indulged in some 
no less costly private expenditures. His wife, Queen 
Amjntis, was a Median princess, and sighed for her 
native mountains amid the flatness of the Babylonian 
plain, the greatest in the ancient world. To gratify 
her, E"ebuchadnezzar constructed the famous gardens, 
which were not " hanging gardens " at all, but rather 
an elevated paradise. Arches were raised on arches 
in continued series until they overtopped the walls of 
Babylon, the height of two hundred cubits, and stair- 
ways led from terrace to terrace. The whole struc- 
ture of masonry was overlaid with soil sufficient to 
nourish the largest trees, which, by means of hydraulic 
engines, were supplied from the river with abundant 
moisture. In the midst of these groves stood the 
royal winter residence ; for a retreat which, in other 
climates, would be most suitable for a summer habita- 
tion, was here reserved for those cooler months in 
which alone man can live in the open air. This 
first great work of landscape gardening which his- 
tory describes comprised a charming variety of hills 
and forests, rivers, cascades, and fountains, and was 
adorned with the loveliest flowers the East could pro- 
duce. 

5. The Persians laid out extensive tracts of lands, 
called paradises, diversified with streams, groves, and 
grottoes, and beautified with every object of art. They 
reduced gardening to a science which was the envy 
even of the Greeks. The gardens of the great satrap 
Tisaphernes at Sardis excited the admiration of the 
Spartan Lysander, laid out with the most magnifi- 



ee THE PLANT WORLD. 

cent taste and adorned with all the plants and flowers 
of Orient lands. Mithridates, of Pontus, copying 
from his Persian ancestors, exhibited a horticultural 
passion, and was himself an adept at gardening. Ln- 
cullns, the conqueror of Mithridates, carried some of 
the Pontine king's ideas to Italy, ornamenting his own 
grounds with the fanciful establishment of the Per- 
sian to such a degree that his friends the Stoics called 
him " Xerxes in a gown." It is well to remember, 
perhaps, that it is to LucuUus that we owe the intro- 
duction of the cherry-tree into the lands of the West. 
6. The Chinese have from a remote antiquity 
exhibited a marvelous skill in the laying out of gar- 
dens and pleasure grounds. Chinese horticulture in 
many respects can not be surpassed by that of the 
most civilized nation of to-day. The imperial gar- 
dens are said to be exquisite creations of the artist's 
and the gardener's art. Those of the Emperor Kien- 
Long, at Zhehol, present the most magnificent speci- 
mens of the Chinese style to be found in the empire. 
Zhehol is a small town in Tartary, and is the summer 
residence of the court. The palace and gardens are 
situated in a romantic valley, on the banks of a fine 
river, overhung by rugged mountains. The grounds 
are exquisitely laid out, and adorned with as many as 
fifty handsome pavilions, magnificently furnished, each 
contaiiung a state room with a throne in it, and some 
of them having a large banqueting hall where enter- 
tainments are given on special occasions to the great 
mandarins of the court. Among the ornaments of 
these beautiful pleasure grounds are small transparent 



SOME WONDERFUL GARDENS. 67 

lakes filled with gold and silver fishes, and a broad 
canal on which are several islands adorned with pa- 
godas and summer-houses of various forms, sheltered 
by groves of trees and fragrant shrubs. All Chinese 
buildings of this description are highly decorated, and 
generally bear some resemblance to a tent, which is 
evidently the model from which the architecture of 
China was originally designed. The gilded pagodas 
and temples rising among the green trees, the flashing 
of fountains, and the flapping of countless sails on the 
canals combine to make this celestial paradise a gar- 
den of delight. 

7. A flavor of Oriental romance is connected with 
the gardens of Shalimar, celebrated in Moore's " Lalla 
Rookh." There was never a more splendid empire 
than that of the Moguls at Delhi, and of all Mo- 
guls no prince was more fond of luxurious pleasures 
than the Emperor Shah Jehan. Every summer he 
passed several months in the lovely vale of Cashmere, 
where, with music, dancing, feasting, and excursions 
by land and water, he beguiled the time in a constant 
succession of varied enjoyments. In this favorite re- 
treat he laid out the gardens so famous in song and 
story. 'No expense was spared in the lavish embel- 
lishment of these grounds. The gardens were inter- 
sected by canals, all flowing from a fairy lake in the 
center, and erected on arches ; over these were several 
elegant saloons, to which the ladies of the court re- 
sorted to take sherbet, coffee, and other refreshments. 
Here the radiant, dark-eyed Moslems wandered mth 
their turbaned lords among the bending trees, or rowed 



68 THE PLANT WORLD. 

upon the fairj lake amid countless rose leaves, while 
the fragrant bowers echoed to the music of harp and 
dulcimer and the soft voices of graceful dancing girls. 
The once beautiful gardens have gone to decay hke 
most other monuments of the former wealth and 
grandeur of Hindoostan, but the memories of the 
charming Mogul princesses, Noor Mahal, Moomtasee, 
and Lalla Eookh, still haunt the place, and Moore's 
musical lines recall the vanished magnificence : 

" Who has not heard of the vale of Cashmere, 
With its roses the fairest that earth ever gave, 
Its temples and grottoes and fountains as clear 
As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave ! " 

8. Famous in English history are the gardens of 
Woodstock, where Henry II kept his Fair Eosamond, 
and where the jealous and cruel Queen Eleanor found 
her beautiful rival and forced her to take her choice 
of death either from the poisoned chalice or the jew- 
eled dagger. E'ear London were the gardens of the 
Temple, where, according to tradition, the famous 
dispute took place between Somerset and York in the 
wars of the Roses, the latter crying in his hot rivalry : 

" Let him who is a true-born gentleman 
And stands upon the honor of his birth, 
^ If he supposes I have pleaded truth. 

From off this brier pluck a white Eose with me.'* 

To which Somerset answers : 

" Let him who is no coward, nor no flatterer, 
But dare maintain the party of the truth, 
Pluck a red Rose from off this thorn with me." 



SOME WONDERFUL GARDENS. 69 

9. About this time John Morton, Bishop of Ely, 
had a garden at Holborn, where he grew excellent 
strawberries. Shakespeare commemorates the good 
bishoJD's garden in his tragedy of " Richard III," mak- 
ing his dwarfed, misshapen hero speak after this wise : 

" My Lord of Ely, when I was last at Holborn, 
I saw good strawberries in your garden there, 
I do beseech you, send for some of them." 

10. Sir Thomas More had a fine garden at Chel- 
sea, which was a place of resort to princes and learned 
men, and elicited praise from Erasmus. Here Henry 
YIII used to walk with the master of the beautiful 
grounds, with an arm around More's neck ; but when, 
a few years later, the Lord Chancellor would not 
sanction his divorce and his marriage with Anne 
Boleyn, this same king had Sir Thomas's head cut off 
at the Tower. 

11. There are many other gardens of note and in- 
terest mentioned in history, a tithe of which we have 
not time to name. Even as we write there comes to 
us the scent of the fruit-trees that Henry lY planted 
at Montpeliier, and of the aromatic herbs in the bo- 
tanical gardens of Alphonse d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. 
Who would not like to have wandered with Pope 
through his attractive garden at Twickenham, or to 
have seen Swift cutting asparagus in the garden of 
Sir William Temple ? As we glance down through 
the ages it almost seems as if the best part of history 
had been enacted in a garden — at least its most social 
and gossipy features. Solomon wooed his dusky, 



70 THE PLANT WORLD. 

dark-tressed bride in a garden ; and on the monuments 
of Assyria King Sennacherib is represented drinking 
wine with his queen under a flower arbor in a spacious 
pleasance. So love and hfe have moved on, while 
their brightest splendor seems to hover around the 
walks and terraces, the arbors and fountains, of these 
earthly paradises. Let us obey the behest of the wise 
caliph Abd-er-Rahman, and plant gardens. 

F. M. Colby, "The Ladies' Floral Cabinet." 



THE CHESTIS^UT-TEEE. 

1. The chestnut {Gastanea vulgaris) is a tree of 
rapid vegetation, and endowed with great longevity. 
It attains a height of twenty to one hundred feet, 
occasionally presenting an enormous circumference. 
Its leaves are large, petiolate, oblong, acutely lanceo- 
late, deeply dentate, coriaceous, smooth, and shining, 
with prominent secondary parallel nerves, accom- 
panied by two caducous stipules. 

2. The flowers are unisexual, and appear after the 
leaves. The male flowers are very small catkins, each 
flower being composed of flve or six divisions, with as 
many or more stamens, having bilocular anthers open- 
ing from without. The female flowers are, to the 
number of five or six, enveloped in a common four- 
lobed involucrum consolidated externally with nu- 
merous Unequal linear bracteoles. Each female flower 
consists of a lower ovarium, surmounted by a calyc- 



THE CHESTNUT-TREE. 71 

inal limb, having ^ve to eight lobes, and an equal 
number of styles. It incloses a like number of cells 
containing two anatropal ovules. When arrived at 
maturity, which is in the month of September or Oc- 
tober, the involucrum is thick and coriaceous, charged 
on the outside with a soft prickly fasciculated en- 
velope, and inclosing from one to five unilocular 
fruits by abortion, known under the name of chestnuts. 
The pericarp is coriaceous, fibrous, and hairy on its 
external surface. The seed contains an embryo with- 
out albumin, under a membranous covering; the 
cotyledons are voluminous, and plicated with fissures 
of greater or less depth, and, as is said, farinaceous. 
The chestnut is the principal produce obtained from 
this useful tree ; this fruit forms the principal food of 
the poor populations of the central flats of France and 
of the valleys of the Alps. Improved by culture, the 
chestnut-tree has given place to the variety called 
marronier, by the French cultivators, of which sev- 
eral varieties are known. They yield the large chest- 
nuts which sometimes come into our markets. 

3. The native country of the chestnut is not very 
clearly ascertained ; it is probably Asiatic, however — 
at least, the common name is Turkish, and is derived 
from their custom of grinding up the nuts and mixing 
it with the food of broken-winded horses, and prob- 
ably of others also when favorites. 

4. The famous chestnut-tree of Mount Etna, said 
in Sicily to be the " Chestnut of a Hundred Horses," 
is reported to be one hundred and seventy feet in 
circumference. Jean Houel gives the history and di- 



72 THE PLANT WORLD. 

mensions of this gigantic tree/ " We departed," lie 
says, " from Ace-Reale in order to visit tlie cliestnut 
called of ' the hundred horses.' We passed through 
Saint Alfro and Piraino, where these trees are com- 
mon, and where we found some superb old chestnuts. 
Thej grow very well in this part of Etna, and they 
are cultivated with great care. Night not having yet 
come, we went at once to see the famous chestnut 
which was the object of our journey. Its size is so 
much beyond all others that we find it impossible to 
express the sensation we experienced on first seeing 
it. Having examined it carefully, I proceeded to 
sketch it from INTature. I continued my sketch the 
next day, finishing it on the spot, according to my 
custom, and I can now say that it is a faithful portrait, 
having demonstrated to my own satisfaction that the 
tree was one hundred and sixty feet in circumference, 
and having heard its history related by the savcmts of 
the hamlet. This trees is called the ' Chestnut of a 
Hundred Horses ' in consequence of the vast extent 
of ground it covers. They tell me that Jean of Ara- 
gon, while journeying from Spain to ISTaples, stopped 
in Sicily and visited Mount Etna, accompanied by all 
the noblesse of Catania on horseback. A storm came 
on, and the queen and her cortege took shelter under 
this tree, whose vast foliage served to protect her and 
all these cavahers from the rain. It is true that out 
of the hamlet the tradition of the queen's visit is 
looked upon as fabulous ; but, however that may be, 
the tree itself seems very capable of doing the office 
assigned to it. 



THE CHESTNUT-TREE. 73 

5. " This tree with its vaunted diameter is entirely 
hollow. It is supported chiefly by its bark, having 
lost its interior entirely by age ; but is not the less 
crowned with verdure. The people of the country 
have erected a house here, with a sort of furnace for 
drying the chestnuts and other fruits which they wish 
to preserve. They are even so indifferent to the pres- 
ervation of this wonderful natural curiosity that they do 
not hesitate to cut off branches to bui-n in the furnace. 

6. " Some persons think that this mass of vegeta- 
tion is formed of many trees which have united their 
trunks ; but a careful examination disposes of this 
notion. They are deceived. All the parts which 
have been destroyed by time or the hand of man 
have evidently belonged to a single trunk. I have 
measured them carefully, and found the one trunk, as 

^ I have said, one hundred and sixty feet in circumfer- 
ence." 

7. We should be inclined to adopt the opinion 
here hinted, that this monster tree was the union of 
several, but M. Houel's sketch and description seem 
conclusive ; and his opinion is further confirmed by 
the fact that many chestnuts in the neighborhood of 
Mount Etna are twelve yards in diameter, while one 
actuallv measures eio'htv-three feet. 

8. ISTow, what age can be assigned to the Mount 
Etna chestnut ? It is difficult to say. If we are to 
suppose that each year its concentric layers have only 
been a hne in thickness, this venerable tree would be 
not less than thirty -six hundred and forty years old. 

Louis Figuier, " The Vegetable World." 



74 THE PLANT WORLD. 



THE BAIsTAKA. 

1. The wonderful luxuriance of tropical vegeta- 
tion is perhaps nowhere more conspicuous and sur- 
prising than in the magnificent Mitsaceoe^ the banana 
{Musa sapientum) and the plantain {Musa jparadisi- 
aGa\ whose fruit most probably nourished mankind 
long before the gifts of Ceres became known. A 
succulent shaft or stem, rising to the height of fifteen 
or twenty feet, and frequently two feet in diameter, 
is formed of the sheath-like leaf-stalks rolled one over 
the other, and terminating in enormous light-green 
and glossy blades, ten feet long and two feet broad, of 
so delicate a tissue that the slightest wind sufiices to 
tear them transverse^ "^ '^« far as the middle rib. A stout 
foot-stalk arising from the center of the leaves and 
reclining over one side of the trunk supports nu- 
merous clusters of flowers, and subsequently a great 
weight of several hundred fruits about the size and 
shape of full-grown cucumbers, j On seeing the stately 
plant, one might suppose that many years had been 
required for its growth; and yet only eight or ten 
months were necessary for its full development. 

2. Each shaft produces its fruit but once, when it 
withers and dies ; but new shoots spring forth from 
the root, and before the year has elapsed unfold 
themselves with the same luxuriance. Thus, without 
any other labor than now and then weeding the field, 
fruit follows upon fruit, and harvest upon harvest. 
A single bunch of bananas often weighs from sixty to 



THE BANANA. 75 

seventy pouiids, and Humboldt has calculated that 
thirty-three pounds of wheat and ninety -nine pounds 
of potatoes require the same space of ground to grow 
upon as will produce four thousand pounds of ba- 
nanas. 

3. This prodigality of I^ature, seemingly so favor- 
able to the human race, is, however, attended with 
great disadvantages ; for where the life of man is ren- 
dered too easy his best powers remain dormant, and 
he almost sinks to the level of the plant which affords 
him subsistence without labor. Exertion awakens our 
faculties as it increases Our enjoyments, and well may 
we rejoice that wheat and not the banana ripens in 
our fields. 

4. As the seeds of the cultivated plantain and ba- 
nana never, or very rarely, coz. ' p maturity, they can 
only be propagated by suckers. "In both hemi- 
spheres," says Humboldt, " as far as tradition or his- 
tory reaches, we find plantains cultivated in the trop- 
ical zone. It is as certain that African slaves have 
introduced, in the course of centuries, varieties of the 
banana into America as that before the discovery of 
Columbus the plantain was cultivated by the aborig- 
inal Indians. These plants are the ornaments of 
humid countries. Like the farinaceous cereals of the 
north, they accompany man from the first infancy of 
his civilization. Semitical traditions place tlieir orig- 
inal home on the banks of the Euphrates ; others, 
with greater probability, at the foot of the Himalayas. 
According to the Greek mythology, the plains of 
Enna were the fortunate birthplace of the cereals; 



76 



THE PLANT WOELD. 



but while tlie monotonous fields of the latter add but 
little to the beautj of the northern regions, the trop- 
ical husbandman multiplies in the banana one of the 
noblest forms of vegetable life." 

5. The Musacece are not only useful to man by 
their mealy, wholesome, and agreeable fruits, but also 
by the fibers of their long leaf -stalks. Some species 
furnish filaments for the finest muslin, and the coarse 
fibers of the Musa textilis^ known in trade under the 
name of manilla hemp, serve for the preparation of 
very durable cordage. 

G. Hartwig, " The Tropical World." 



THE WATEE-LILY. 



1. Oh, beautiful thou art, 

Thou sculpture-like and stately river-queen ! 
Crowning the depths, as with the light serene, 
Of a pure heart. 

2. Bright lily of the wave ! 
Hising in fearless grace with every swell. 
Thou seem'st as if a spirit meekly brave 

Dwelt in thy cell. 

3. Lifting alike thy head 

Of placid beauty, feminine, yet free, 

"Whether with foam or pictured azure spread 

The waters be. 

Hemans. 




Clmhing for Palm Wine. 



PLANT-LORE. 77 



PLA:tTT-LOEE. 



1. Apart altogether from the more or less vague 
and valueless symbohsm, direct or indirect, under- 
stood as the Language of Flowers, Hh ere is an abun- 
dant store of traditionary lore associated with all kinds 
of trees, plants, and flowers. The study of this throws 
much light on many puzzling survivals in popular 
folklore, and Mannhardt (1831-'80) and Mr. J. G. 
Frazer have shown its importance for part of the 
problem of primitive religion. It is not infrequent 
among Australians and red Indians to find the totem 
(the name or symbol of a tribe) taking the form of a 
plant or tree, and for these the individual shows his 
reverence by refusing to gather or destroy them. We 
find the worship of trees widely prevalent among 
savages everywhere, and we have ample evidence that 
it was an important element in the religion of all the 
families of the Aryan stock. Grimm thinks the old- 
est sanctuaries of the Germans were natural woods, 
and hints at a historical connection between the an- 
cient sacred inviolate wood and the later royal forest 
— a ludicrous descent from the god to the game-pre- 
server. The oak- worship of the ancient Druids, the 
sacred fig-tree of Romulus in the center of Rome, the 
Ficus religiosa of India, and the sacred groves of the 
Semitic and pre- Semitic races still surviving at Car- 
thage a century after Augustine are ready examples of 
tree-worship from sufficiently wide centers of civiliza- 
tion. 



78 THE PLANT WORLD. 

2. The primitive mind of tlie savage readily con- 
ceives of a tree as animated by a conscious soul cog- 
nate with his own, and he may regard the tree either 
as its permanent outward organism or merely its 
characteristic dwelling-place. Hence trees have their 
place in the doctrine of fetichism, of idolatry, and the 
upward development of religion. Buddhists do not 
include trees among sentient beings possessing mind, 
but recognize the existence of the genius of the tree, 
and Buddha himself was such as often as forty-three 
times during his transmigrations. The reverence paid 
to the famous Bo-tree, shows how fundamental a fact 
is tree-worship, which undoubtedly formed a part of 
the old indigenous religion amalgamated by the new 
philosophical faith. But none the less are the sacred 
tree and grove to be found within the range of Se- 
mitic and Aryan influences, and the obstinate revival, 
even under the shadow of purer rites, of the Canaan- 
itish Ashera worship proves how deeply they were 
rooted in the old religion of the land. From all sides 
we find evidence at once of the great antiquity and 
uniformity of the worship of trees, whether for the 
services they render to man, for their venerable an- 
tiquity, their form, for particular qualities ascribed to 
them as containing the seeds of fire, for their situa- 
tion, as on somber and lonely mountain- tops, or for 
their association with certain phenomena, as plagues 
and pestilences, or certain events in the history of the 
homestead. 

3. In the growth, life, decay, and death of the 
plant, the primitive man easily sees an analogue to 



PLANT-LORE. 79 

his own life-Mstory, and herein we may find the 
philosophy of the widespread rustic rites associated 
with marriage and with the birth of children. The 
custom of scattering flowers and the fruits of the field 
over the footsteps of a newly married pair conveys an 
obvious reference to the belief in the reproductive 
powers of vegetation and to the fundamental postulate 
of all sympathetic magic that any effect may be pro- 
duced by imitating it. Primitive ideas of the f ertihz- 
ing and fruit-bearing powers of ^Nature led easily, 
according to Mannhardt, to the belief that each tree 
or plant possesses spiritual as well as physical life, 
being tenanted, either by semi-divine spirits or by the 
ghosts of the dead ; and a natural generahzation of 
this notion made plants and trees collectively the 
abode of particular inhabitants — an example of ani- 
mism developing into polytheism. A forest-god has 
been deduced from a mere tree-soul, both alike re- 
garded as powerful to produce rain or sunshine, to 
cause fruits to spring and cattle to easily bring forth 
their young. 

4. A still higher generalization gave a belief in a 
genius of plant-life or forest-life, or, higher still, a 
genius of growth or fertility in general. This uni- 
versal genius of growth was symbolized by a bush or 
tree, brought in triumph from the forest, gayly decked, 
and solemnly planted near the homestead or in the 
village. We have thus seen both the spirit incor- 
porate in the tree, suffering and dying with^t, and 
the tree considered as the mere dwelling-placu of the 
god ; but still further in many cases we find the tree- 



80 THE PLANT WORLD. 

spirit regarded as detached from tlie tree, and, through 
a confusion of his vegetable and anthropomorphic 
representations, clothed in human form as a man or a 
girl decked with flowers — the May King, Queen of 
the May, the Old Woman or Corn-mother of German 
harvest-fields, the Jack in the Green of young Lon- 
don sweeps, and the like, j The existence of those 
corn-spirits which especially haunted and protected 
the waving corn, we see dimly recognized in charac- 
teristic ceremonies of an English harvest-home, and 
in the German custom of leaving the last sheaf of rye 
in the field as a tribute to the EoggenwuK. The 
French and German custom of the Harvest May, in 
which a branch or tree decked with ears of com is 
carried home in the last wagon from the harvest-field 
and hung on the roof of the farmhouse till next year, 
is closely cognate with the eiresione of ancient Greece, 
and suggests a parallel with some of our own old har- 
vest customs. 

5. Sympathetic affinities between plant and animal 
life strongly impress the primitive imagination ; we 
find them playing an important part in many cosmo- 
gonies, as in the Iranian account of how the first hu- 
man pair grew up as a single tree, the fingers or twigs 
^ of each one folded over the other's ears, till the time 
came when they were separated and infused by 
Ahuramazda with distinct human souls. Other 
mythical cosmogonic trees that need only be named 
are the heavenly fig-tree of the Yedas, and the ash- 
tree Yggdrasil of Norse mythology. In some places 
trees are informed when their owner dies, and an 



PLANT-LORE. 81 

apology formally made to tliem by the woodcutter be- 
fore he fells them ; and every one is familiar with the 
custom of planting a tree at the birth of a child, 
and the notion of a sympathetic relation subsisting 
throughout life betwixt the two. 

6. The trees planted by Queen Yictoria on her 
visit to an Enghsh town and the Trees of Liberty 
planted to mark a new political regime^ convey un- 
consciously a survival of the same sympathetic sym- 
bolism. The belief that a child's rickets can be 
cured by passing him through a cleft ash-tree, still 
lingers obstinately in corners of England, and stories 
of trees giving forth human groans and exuding hu- 
man blood are common in folk-tales everywhere. 
Even so late as 1870, in Oxfordshire, a gypsy woman 
told how Fair Kosamond was changed into a " Holy 
Brier," which bleeds if one plucks a twig. Families, 
as well as individuals, have tutelary or guardian trees, 
and Hyten-Cavallius, for example, tells us that the 
three families of Linnaeus, Lindelius, and Tiliander 
were all called after the same tree, an ancient linden 
or lime which grew at Jonsboda Lindergord. "When 
the Lindelius family died one of the old lime's chief 
boughs withered ; after the death of the daughter of 
the great Linnseus the second main bough fittingly 
bore leaves no more ; and when the last of the Tili- 
ander family expired the tree's active life came to an 
end, though the dead trunk still exists and is highly 
honored. 

7. We see, then, how natural is the notion of sym- 
bolizing the genius of vegetation under the form of a 

7 



82 THE PLANT WORLD. 

tree, and thus, as lias been shown, we find some hint 
at the real philosophy underlying the joyous Old- 
World May-day usages, the Maypole decked with 
streamers, round which young men and maidens 
danced in chorus, and not less the high ceremonies at- 
tending the harvest-home. Even oar Christmas-tree, 
-^.which originally made its way into England and 
France principally through the influence of Prince 
Albert and the Duchess Helen of Orleans, is really 
nothing but a survival of an ancient German custom of 
heathen origin, and we may safely disregard the fool- 
ish theory of its being Christian because the 24:th of 
December chances to be consecrated to Adam and 
Eve. One legend relates how Adam brought from 
paradise a fruit or slip from the tree of Knowledge, 
from which sprang the tree from which the Cross 
was made — an example of a process of myth-making 
after the fact to which we owe not a few beliefs and 
customs not understood. But many plants have re- 
ceived a kind of religious consecration from the name 
of some saint whose festival fell on the day on which 
they were gathered. And Christianity, like Bud- 
dhism, early showed a marvelous adaptabihty in the 
way in which it adopted popular rites of an earlier 
religion and subtly rebaptized them as its own. 

8. Many remnants of primitive superstitions sur- 
vive in the local English names of plants and flowers, 
chiefly in connection with the fairies, the devil, the 
Virgin, and the Cross, and we have a great wealth of 
association from one cause or other between saints 
and flowers, as St. Agnes with the Christmas rose, 



PLANT-LORE. 83 

St. Joseph of Arimatliea with the Glastonbury thorn, 
St. Patrick with the shamrock, the Yirgin with the 
white HI J, just as Thor had his oak-tree, Yenus her 
myrtle, the Indians the lotus, and the Druids the 
mistletoe. Again, historical personages and families 
are frequently associated with particular flowers---it is 
enough merely to name the orange-lily, the red ani 
white roses, the fleur-de-hs, the Planta genista^ and 
the violet. Family and clan crests frequently take 
this form, as the hi*, holly, juniper ; also national 
badges, as the rose, thistle, shamrock. More curious 
and interesting, although obscure, are the notions of 
magical properties connected as persistently with 
some plants as medicinal properties are with others. 
Most prominent in European folklore are the elder, 
the thorn, and the rowan or mountain-ash ; but 
strange properties are still ascribed to the rosemary, 
veryain, St. John's-wort, mandrake, asphodel, and to 
fern-seed ; and many flowers lend themselves through 
some obscure inherent fitness to special methods of 
divination. 

9. The doctrine of signatures, of such importance 
in the history of medicine, opens up a special chapter 
of sympathetic magic, involving the belief that plants 
bore by nature marks indicating plainly for what 
diseases they were medicinally useful. The trees of 
Paradise, of Chaldsean and other cosmogonies, the 
oracular oaks of Dodona, those trees of healing spirit- 
ually allegorized in the Apocalypse, the Trees of Lib- 
erty of the French Revolution, and the trees round 
which an Indian bride and bridegroom walk hand in 



84 THE PLANT WORLD. 

hand, point as unmistakably to a real sympathetic 
affinity between the human and the vegetable world 
as did the dryads, fauns, and satyrs of the ancient 
Hellenic mythology, with their analogues our own 
elves and fairies of the woods, the transformation- 
myths, the Orpheus whose lyre laid its charm on 
beasts and trees alike, or the Pan at the report of 
whose death all Nature mourned aloud. 

Anonymous, " Chambers's Encyclopaedia." 



THE LOKGEYITY OF TEEES. 

1. In the vegetable world limits of growth and 
life are strangely diversified. Multitudes of forms 
mature and perish in a few days or hours, while 
others, whose beginning was in a remote antiquity, 
have survived the habitual period of their kind, and 
still enjoy the luxuriance of their prime. Some spe- 
cies of unicellular plants are so minute that millions 
occur in the bulk of a cubic inch, and a flowering 
plant is described by Humboldt, which, when fully 
developed, is not more than three tenths of an inch 
in height. On the other hand, we have the great Se- 
quoia, whose mass is expressed by hundreds of tons, 
and specimens of the Eucalyptus growing in the 
gulches of Australia surpass in height the dome of 
St. Peter's. 

2. Some of the Fungi mature between the setting 
and rising of the sun, while the oak at our door, which 



THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 85 

awakens the memories of our cliildliood, has not per- 
ceptibly changed in bulk in haK a century. Trees 
grow more slowly as they increase in age. J^ever- 
theless it is certain that growth continues while they 
continue to live. The development of foliage implies 
interstitial activity and organization of new material. 
In its vital processes there is httle expenditure of 
force or waste of substance. Its functions are essen- 
tially constructive, and its growth and age are appar- 
ently without limits, excepting such as arise from 
surrounding conditions. Thus many trees represent 
centuries, and have a permanence that is astonishing 
and subhme. Travelers stand awestruck before the 
monuments which for forty centuries have kept watch 
by the Mle, but the oldest of these may not antedate 
the famous dragon-tree of Teneriffe. It is not sur- 
prising that the ancients considered trees " immortal," 
or as " old as Time." 

3. But if the life of the tree is continuous, its 
leaves — the organs of its growth — ^have their periods 
of decay, and are types of mortahty. The life of 
man is likened to the "leaf that perishes." In an 
animal, the vital processes are carried on by a single 
set of organs, the impairment of which limits the pe- 
riod of its life. With the tree, decay of the organs 
is followed by constant renovation, and the foliage 
which covers it the present summer is as new and as 
young as that which adorned it a hundred or a thou- 
sand years ago. Trees which shed their leaves annu- 
ally, or at longer intervals as do the evergreens, grow 
by formation of new wood in layers upon their outer 



86 THE PLANT WORLD. 

surface, and just beneatli tlie bark. These constitute 
the class Exogens^ or outside growers. A lajer rep- 
resents the growth of a year. "Where these are acces- 
sible, there is no difficulty in ascertaining the age of a 
tree, or the rate of its growth; and the rate thus 
ascertained may be apphed to other trees of its kind 
whose diameter is kno^vn, although its woody layers 
be inaccessible. In this way the age of many trees 
has been estimated. The relation between the age of 
a tree and its annual rings was first noticed and ap- 
phed by Montaigne, in 1581. 

4. But this method of ascertaining a tree's age 
does not apply to the class Endogens^ in which the 
growth is internal. In these a hard inflexible shell 
forms around the inner portions, the tree increases 
little in diameter, and no woody layers are found. To 
this class belong the Pahns. The age of this class 
of trees is estimated by comparing specimens with 
others whose age is known, or from an ascertained 
rate of growth. The oldest palms may not exceed 
^^Q centuries, and their average period is probably 
less than two hundred years. The height of the tall- 
est of the species is said to be one hundred and nine- 
ty-two feet. Trees growing in dense forests are com- 
paratively short-lived, and attain less bulk than those 
in open places, where side-branches develop in the 
unobstructed -rays of the sun. In similar conditions 
the age and dimensions attained by trees of each spe- 
cies are tolerably constant. Thus the average period 
of oaks and pines may be three or four hundred 
years ; but the exceptions are so numerous and won- 



THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 87 

derful that we shall present here a few of the most 
interesting and best-authenticated instances. 

5. Of the white-pines, once the glory of the JSTew 
England forests, we are not aware that any have 
been found more than four hundred and thirty years 
old. 'Nor have we any oaks of extraordinary age. 
The Charter oak at Hartford may have been a small 
tree at the first settlement of J^ew England. The 
Wadsworth oak, at Geneseo, ^New York, is said to be 
-G.Ye centuries old, and twenty-seven feet in circumfer- 
ence at the base. The massive, slow-growing live-oaks 
of Florida are worthy of notice, on account of the 
enormous length of their branches. Bartram says : 
" I have stepped fifty paces in a straight line from 
the trunk of one of these trees to the extremity of 
the limbs." 

6. The oaks of Europe are among the grandest 
of trees. The Cowthorpe oak is seventy-eight feet 
in circuit at the ground, and is at least eighteen 
hundred years old. Another, in Dorsetshire, is of 
equal age. In Westphalia is a hollow oak which 
was used as a place of refuge in the troubled times 
of mediaeval history. The great oak at Saintes, in 
southern France, is ninety feet in girth, and has been 
ascertained to be two thousand years old. This monu- 
ment, still or recently flourishing, commemorates a 
period which antedates the first campaign of Julius 
Caesar ! 

7. The Oriental plane-tree is noted m Eastern 
countries for its size and longevity. There is one 
near Constantinople which is one hundred feet high 



88 THE PLANT WORLD. 

and one hundred and fifty feet in circuit. It has been 
suggested that this is really a group of trees originally 
planted near together for their shade. A photograph, 
however, hardly confirms that opinion, and many trees 
of this species are mentioned by travelers not great- 
ly inferior to this one in dimensions. Most of the 
old plane-trees are hollow, their tops being sustained 
by wood of recent growth. In this respect an ex- 
ogenous tree resembles a coral reef, where the vitality 
and growth are at the surface only. 

8. Of chestnuts, we have the famous one at Tort- 
worth, in Gloucestershire, England, which was a large 
tree in the reign of Eing Stephen, and is over one 
thousand years old. The " Great Chestnut of Mount 
Etna " consists, at present, of what appears to be sev- 
eral trees, fragments of the original one. These are 
by some supposed to be shoots from,, rather than 
portions of, the old tree. Jean Houel, who examined 
the trees, says " they are portions of one tree." By 
removing the soil, the outer rim of the tree has been 
found, and the circumference ascertained to be one 
hundred and seventy-five feet. Other chestnuts near 
this are in girth sixty-four, seventy, and seventy-two 
feet respectively. 

9. The lime or linden in Europe is an important 
tree. Those in the town of Morat are celebrated in 
the history of Switzerland. One was planted in 1746 
to commemorate the defeat of the Burgundians un- 
der Charles the Bold ; the other was a noted tree at 
the time of the battle, and is now near nine cen- 
turies old. But, equally famous is the one at Wiir- 



THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 89 

temberg, called the " Great Linden " six centuries ago. 
It is probably one thousand years old, and measures 
thirty-five feet in girth. Four and a half centuries 
ago its branches were supported by sixty-seven col- 
umns of stone, now increased to one hundred and six, 
many of which are " covered with inscriptions." 

10. The well-known olive-tree is associated with 
our most cherished recollections. There is an old 
one near Mce, twenty-four feet in girth, regarded 
by the inhabitants with great interest. Those on 
the Mount of OHves may be contemporary with 
the Christian era. They are known to have been 
in existence in 1217, when the Turks captured Jeru- 
salem. 

11. The evergreen cypress, long celebrated for its 
longevity, is abimdant in the burial-grounds of East- 
em nations, and, from its dark, dense foliage, forms 
an impressive picture of Oriental landscapes. In the 
Palace G-ardens of Granada are cypresses said to be 
eight hundred years old ; and there is one at Somma, 
in Lombardy, proved by authentic documents "to 
have been a considerable tree forty years before the 
Christian era." Of this family of trees is our well- 
known white cedar, specimens of which exhumed 
from the meadows on the coast of 'New Jersey had 
from seven hundred to one thousand rinses of wood 
solid and fragrant as if of recent growth. 

12. The cedars of Lebanon are often referred to 
in the Sacred Writings. The present trees are, we 
believe, seven large ones, with many of smaller growth, 
situated in an elevated valley of the Lebanon Moun- 



90 THE PLANT WORLD. 

tains, six thousand one hundred and seventy-two 
feet above the Mediterranean. The valley is sur- 
rounded by peaks of the mountains, which rise three 
thousand feet higher, and are covered with snow. 
De CandoUe supposes the oldest are twelve hundred 
years old, but no sections of their wood have been ex- 
amined to determine their age. The cedar is known 
to grow slowly, as does the l^orth American or bald 
cypress. This latter tree is common in our South- 
ern States, and its rate of growth has been deter- 
mined. On the Mexican table-lands its growth and 
antiquity are immense. The " Cypress of Montezu- 
ma," near the city of Mexico, is forty-four feet in 
girth, and its age is estimated at upward of twenty 
centuries. In the churchyard of Santa Maria del 
Tule, in the Mexican State of Oaxaca, is a cypress 
which " measures one hundred and twelve feet in 
circuit, and is without sign of decay." At Palenque 
are cypresses growing among the ruins of the old 
city, whose streets they may have shaded in the days 
of its pride. By the usual methods the age of the 
cypress at Santa Maria del Tule is calculated at five 
thousand one hundred and twenty-four years, or, 
if it grew as rapidly during its whole life as similar 
trees grow when young, it would still be four thou- 
sand and twenty-four years old. 

13. The yew has long been used in Great Britain 
as an adornment of places of sepulture, and is often 
referred to in English literature : 

" Beneath these rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap." 



THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 91 

This tree, of almost imperishable wood, is indigenous 
to Great Britain. De Candolle ascertained its rate 
of gro^vth, and concluded that individual specimens 
are of great antiquity. There is a jew at Ankerwyke 
House older than Magna Charta. It was an old and 
celebrated tree when King John met the barons at 
Eunnymede, in 1215, and its age is upward of eleven 
centuries ; but the yews of Fountain's Abbey and the 
Darley yew are from three to five centuries older 
than this. In Fortingal Churchyard, Perthshire, is a 
yew eighteen feet in diameter, through decayed por- 
tions of which funeral processions pass on their way 
to the grave. The age of this tree is estimated at 
eighteen hundred years. But of greater antiquity is 
the one described by Evelyn, which stood in Bra- 
borne Churchyard, in Kent. It measured fifty- 
nine feet in girth, and was believed to be twenty- 
five hundred years old. This tree, which has long 
disappeared, was probably contemporary with the 
founding of E-ome. The growth and decline of a great 
empire was spanned by the duration of a single life. 

14. More immense in bulk, but perhaps not older 
than these hving monuments, are the pines of Oregon 
and the Sequoias of California. Mr. Douglas counted 
eleven hundred annual layers in a Lambert pine, 
and three hundred feet is not an unusual height 
for the Douglas spruce. Hutchings states that a Se- 
quoia which was blown down and measured by him 
was four hundred and thirtv-five feet in len2:th. It 
was eighteen feet in diameter three hundred feet from 
the ground. Scientific observation has connected 



92 THE PLANT WORLD. 

with these trees an interest equal to that awakened bj 
their size and age. Our most distinguished botanist, 
Prof. Gray, has shown that the Sequoias, now grow- 
ing on a limited area, had formerly a wide distribu- 
tion, and are lineal descendants from ancestral types 
which flourished at least as far back in geologic time 
as the Cretaceous age. The descent has been wh ^ 
modifications furnishing an important link in the 
chain of evidence which establishes the derivative 
origin of specific forms. Prof. Gray thinks the age 
of the oldest living Sequoia may be about two thou- 
sand years, and remarks : " It is probable that close 
to the heart of some of the living trees may be 
found the circle which records the year of our Sa- 
viour's nativity." 

15. The sacred banian is familiar to every reader. 
Its main trunk attains a diameter of from twenty 
to thirty feet, and its enormous roof of foliage may 
shelter the inhabitants of a considerable village. The 
pendent branches are really roots, which, on reach- 
ing the ground, penetrate it and form trunks. These 
correspond with the outer layers of wood in an oak or 
a pine, and sustain the top, although the original 
trunks decay and disappear. 

16. The dragon-tree of Orotava, on the island of 
Teneriife, is a well-known and historic tree. Twice 
during the present century it has been dismantled by 
storms. It is but sixty-nine feet high, but is seven- 
ty-nine feet in circumference. So slow is its growth 
that its diameter had scarcely changed in four hun- 
dred years. Kecently it bore flowers and luxuriant 



THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 93 

foliage, as it may have done before tlie " isles of the 
Western Ocean," on one of which it was growing, 
were a dream in the Grecian mythology. 

IT. The baobab, or monkey bread-fruit, is the last 
we can notice of the ancient trees. It was first de- 
scribed by a Venetian traveler in 1454. These trees 
are found, however, in nearly all portions of Africa 
south of the Desert, everywhere an imposing feature 
of the landscape, and objects of regard if not of rev- 
erence by the natives. In the rainy season they are 
in full luxuriance, and are covered with cup-shaped 
flowers six inches in diameter. The trunks grow 
from twenty to sixty feet high, but are sometimes one 
hundred feet in circuit at the ground. The baobabs, 
like most other trees, grow rapidly when young, but 
slowly when old. Eecent estimates attribute to some 
of the oldest a period of three thousand years. This 
is scarcely more than one half the age assigned to 
them by early writers. In 1832 a baobab was trans- 
planted into a garden at Caracas, which grew as 
much in forty years as would have required one hun- 
dred years by early estimate. By the native town of 
Shupanga, near the Zambesi, in eastern Africa, is a 
venerable baobab, beneath which is the grave of Mrs. 
Livingstone. 

18. Such, briefly, are some of the great living 
monuments of the vegetable kingdom. In longevity 
they are in striking contrast with higher types of life. 
Fixed to a single spot, the tree is what it is because 
of the forces which act upon it. It is a monument of 
accumulated and concentrated force. Transmuted 



94: THE PLANT WORLD. 

sunlight is in all its fibers, and who shall estimate the 
dynamic work which has been expended in its struc- 
ture ? 

19. Dr. Draper observes that " the beat of a pen- 
dulum occupies a second of time ; divide that period 
into a million of equal parts, then divide each of 
these brief periods into a million of other equal parts 
— a wave of yellow light during one of the last small 
intervals has vibrated five hundred and thirty-five 
times. Yet that yellow light has been the chief in- 
strument in building the tree." In the delicate tex- 
ture of its leaves it has overcome molecular force ; it 
has beaten asunder the elements of an invisible gas 
and inaugurated a new arrangement of atoms. The 
old dragon-tree represents forty centuries of this dy- 
namic work — a sublime monument reared without toil 
by the silent forces of Nature ! 

20. In the outer air it has awakened every note 
of sound, from the softest monotone to the rhythmic 
roar of the tempest ; but in its inner chambers has 
been a murmur and music of life in the ceaseless move- 
ment of fluids and marshaling of atoms, as one by one 
they take their place in the molecular dance, which 
eludes the dull sense of hearing and becomes obvious 
only in results. The veil which hides these ultimate 
processes of life has not yet been lifted, and science 
pauses in waiting before it, but only waits. 

Elias Lewis, " The Popular Science Monthly." 



GRASSES. 95 



GEASSES. 

1. Of all tlie plants covering our hills and valleys, 
grasses are tlie most general and tlie most important. 
"We attach great and deserved importance to utility, 
and seldom stint our meed of praise to beauty ; yet 
as we pluck up the grassy weeds in our flower-beds 
or sentence the garden- walk to a covering of salt to 
destroy the young grass-blades, how little we recog- 
nize how beneficent and lordly a family we are mak- 
ing war with! yet, as the term loeed has been well 
defined as " a plant growing where it is not wanted," 
the young grasses, so valuable in the meadows or pas- 
ture, are deserving of extermination when they in- 
trude themselves into \hQ parterre. 

2. Linnseus has computed grasses to constitute a 
sixth part of all the vegetables of the globe. They 
prevail especially in open situations, and spread them- 
selves by their creeping habits to a great extent. 
The family is numerous, and very widely distributed. 
Persoon's " Synopsis " contains eight hundred and 
twelve species, and Homer and Schultes enumerate 
eighteen hundred. Their diffusion is coextensive 
with the existence of vegetation. Travelers pene- 
trating to the South Shetland Isles find Aira antarc- 
tica flourishing alone and spreading its light panicles 
in a region of " thick-ribbed ice " ; Agrostis aUjida 
was found by Phipps on Spitzbergen ; and in Green- 
land and Iceland, where there is scarcely light enough 
for the humblest vegetables to flourish, Trisetum siib- 



96 THE PLANT WORLD. 

spicatum not only endures the sleet and bitter cold, 
and spreads its blossoms nnder such inhospitable cir- 
cumstances, but actually ripens abundance of seed. 
On the mountain ranges of the south of Europe 
grasses ascend almost to the snow-line, especially Poa 
disticha^ P. malulensis, and P. dactyloides^ and Fes- 
tuca dasyantha. 

3. Under the equator characteristic grades are 
found; indeed, it is impossible to find a climate to 
which they will not suit themselves. They occur in 
every soil, in company and alone, often covering 
large areas with a single species, or combining half a 
dozen in a square inch. Every kind of soil has its 
special patrons in the family, but fewer species favor 
sandy ground than other kinds. Some grow in water, 
many in marsh and bog, but there are no marine spe- 
cies. 'Eo matter how barren the spot, grasses of some 
kind will establish themselves there; the rocky fis- 
sures have their fringe of feathery grasses, the tops 
of walls or " dikes " are green with them, and the 
decaying ruin is as surely decked with grass plumes 
as with the soft drapery of moss and lichen. Dr. 
Deakin enumerates fifty-six species found by him on 
the ruins of the Colosseum, and we can none of us 
call to mind a gray ruin of abbey or fortress without 
its complement of commemorative grasses. There is 
no place where the presence of grass is more wel- 
come or more touching in its associations than in 
the churchyard. The early withering of many sum- 
mer grasses brings to memory the scriptural analogy 
" All fiesh is as grass " ; but the associations with the 



GRASSES. 97 

green turf of E"ature's lost home are entirely restful. 
The American poet expresses genial feeling on this 
subject in some simple lines on " The Yoice of the 
Grass " : 

"Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; 
By the rusty roadside, 
On the sunny hillside. 
Close by the noisy brook, 
In every shady nook, 
I come creeping, creeping everywhere. 

*'Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; 
In the noisy street 
My pleasant face you'll meet, 
Cheering the sick at heart. 
Toiling his busy part, 
Silently creeping, creeping everywhere. 

" Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere ; 
When you're numbered with the dead, 
In your still and narrow bed. 
In the happy spring I'll come 
And deck your silent home, 
Creeping silently, creeping everywhere." 

4. Mr. Shirley Hibberd describes the welcome 
presence of grass in truly poetic style. He says : 
" Grass climbs up the steep mountain passes and 
forms green ledges among the rivings of the crags ; 
it leaps down between steep shelving precipices, and 
there fastens its slender roots in dry crevices which 
the earthquakes have rent long ago, and into which 
the water trickles when 'the sunbeams thaw the hoary 
snows above. There it flings its sweet greenness to 
8 



98 THE PLANT WORLD. 

the sun, creeps about in the mazes of the solitude, 
and waves its fairy tassels in the wind. It even 
beautifies the grave, and spreads over the sightless 
visage of death and darkness the serene luster of a 
summer smile." 

5. In our climate the idea of grass is always con- 
nected with the velvety sward of hill and park, or 
the quivering plumes of the fragrant meadow; but 
in tropical countries the character of the grasses is 
quite different. There you may search in vain for 
the compact elastic turf over which our childhood's 
feet have loved to bound ; grasses you find indeed, 
but seldom crowded together and interwoven into a 
natural carpet. There they grow dispersed or in 
clusters, attaining a lordly size, and exhibiting gigan- 
tic plumes of flowers of surpassing beauty. Nearly 
all tropical grasses attain a height that may be called 
gigantic in comparison with our temperate species, 
and some of the bamboos grow to a stature of fifty or 
sixty feet. Their leaves are broader in proportion, 
and in most species there are flowers of different 
sexes on each plant. The flowers are more generally 
furnished with hairy appendages, or the parts are 
fringed with silky hairs, often of silvery whiteness, 
which gives them a very elegant appearance. Thus 
the tropical grasses make up by their size and beauty 
for the absence of the ever- welcome turf. In sub- 
tropical districts the grasses are of an intermediate 
size and number, or representatives of the two forms 
are both present. Arundo donax^ in the south of 
Europe, emulates the bamboo in its size and ele- 



GRASSES. 99 

gance, and several species present the characteristic 
of the combination of different sexes ; the turf, 
though not absent altogether, is much less compact 
than in the cooler climates, and meadows are less 
frequent. 

6. Of the many gifts bestowed by our beneficent 
Creator in the kingdom of I^ature, that of the grasses 
is perhaps the most valuable to the life of man, wheth- 
er we regard it as "the grass grown for cattle" or 
" the green herb for the use of man." In the first- 
named gift we reckon all the agricultural grasses, 
both natural and artificial, the value of which we 
only realize when during a drought they are with- 
drawn. At such a time we are not surprised to hear 
even of so great and imperious a king as Ahab going 
forth to see if perchance he can find a little grass 
anywhere to save some of his cattle ahve. And, as 
in the " green herb for the service of man," we rec- 
ognize the rank lines of corn growing up — " first the 
blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the 
ear" — yielding at last in the rich harvest time the 
precious " staff of life," " bread to strengthen man's 
heart." 

Y. As food for man and beast, it is impossible to 
overvalue this great gift of God ; nor should we for- 
get how valuable is the turfy carpet overspreading 
our hills and valleys, both as regards its comfort to 
the foot of the weary traveler and its charm to the 
eye. Who that has any taste for the beautiful can 
fail to admire the glory of the meadow, whether the 
trembling panicles of its grasses are laden witli the 



100 THE PLANT WORLD. 

diamonds of tlie dew or giving out their odor under 
the influence of the midday sun ? And when the 
summer is over and gone and the rich growth of the 
meadows stands stoutly in a burly stack, the after- 
math is not less profuse in its adornments than was 
the earher crop ; for, as 

" Ilka blade o' grass keps its ain drap o' dew," 

so every blade has its own wreath of jewels bestowed 
by the breath of the hoar-frost. 

8. Yery early in the year the grass-flowers come 
forth to court our regard. The sweet vernal grass 
leads the first group, and half a dozen have shaken 
forth their tasseled stamens before the April showers 
have ceased. May, the month of flowers, boasts but 
three flowering grasses, one of which is the Holy 
G-rass — so called because dedicated to the Holy Yir- 
gin, and used in Prussia and elsewhere in the decora- 
tion of the churches, fitting therefore to flower in the 
month which, like itseK, is dedicated to the mother 
of our Lord. June is rich in grasses; Mr. Lowe 
enumerates forty-four which flower in that month, 
but the numbers only reach their maximum in July, 
when sixty-six perfect their blossoms, according to 
the computation of the same author. August has 
but few grasses, and after that the flowers of the 
family are seen no more, or only in belated indi- 
viduals. 

9. ISTearly every grass is wholesome, all the seeds 
partaking of the nature of the cereals. Lolium terriu- 
lentum is an exception ; its seeds have the character 



GRASSES. 101 

of being narcotic and deleterious and producing in- 
toxication and even convulsions. There are terrible 
legends of poisoning by darnel-bread, but authors of 
the present daj doubt the truth of the said legends, 
and return a verdict of " not proven." The seeds of 
Bromus mollis are accounted doubtfully wholesome, 
and those of the foreign species Festuca quadri- 
dentata lie under the same suspicion. There is a 
curious species in ]!*^ew Zealand, called Spear-grass, 
which is very injurious to the feet of horses and 
men because of its sharp spines, which are a foot 
long ; the spike measures a yard in length, and the 
strong sharp awns are truly vegetable spears ; Dr. 
Lauder Lindsay says it is accounted the pest of the 
province. But these are trifling exceptions where 
the great numbers of the family are so distinctly 
wholesome and useful. 

10. Cereals of course take the first place in the 
grass family, being absolutely necessary to the life of 
the human race. He who created man in his own 
image had already created for him the " green herb " 
that should form the most important part of his sus- 
tenance, and willed that, by using the talents that he 
had endowed him with, he should improve and ex- 
tend, by cultivation, those nutritious seeds, so as to 
provide food co-extensively with the increased need 
of it. Thus we have in the large variety of cereals a 
mere handful of species, placed by the hand of Provi- 
dence so as to attract the special riotice of man from 
time immemorial, and now become the daily bread of 
the great human family. Only second in importance 



102 THE PLANT WORLD. 

to the cereals stand the agricultural grasses, without 
which we could not keep our flocks and herds, and 
so must forfeit all the support and service we receive 
from them. In temperate climates the earth is cov- 
ered by the greensward, which furnishes such abun- 
dance of pasturage and meadow for our troops of 
cattle. In the tropical climates the sward is absent, 
but the grasses are there in another form, and though 
of gigantic size, many of them are so tender and deli- 
cate that they are as valuable as our own as fodder 
for cattle. In Australia, Kangaroo-grass {Anthistiria 
australis) affords excellent food for sheep, and the 
Dharba or Doob of India {Cynodon dactylon) is so 
valuable as to be the theme of many poems. Mexico 
rejoices its flocks with the Gama grass, and the Tussac 
grass of the Falklands is noted for its nutritious qual- 
ities. 

11. The group of grasses used for economic and 
industrial purposes is comparatively insignificant, but 
by no means unimportant when our attention ceases 
to be dazzled by the greatness of the value of the 
cereal and fodder grasses. In many rural districts 
their utility for thatch, fences, building purposes, and 
domestic articles is well attested, and neither poor 
nor rich will despise their employment in the straw- 
hat manufacture. Ornamental grasses form a very 
attractive group, as exhibited in our public gardens in 
the present day, and, though not able to lay claim 
to edible or industrial properties, they well deserve 
notice as the fine ladies and gentlemen of the tribe. 
Margaret Plues, " British G-rasses." 






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GIANTS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 103 



GIAIS'TS OF THE VEGETABLE KmGDOM. 

1. Like animals, plants may be infinitely little or 
infinitely huge ; the latter astonish us by theii- colossal 
proportions, while the former escape our ken, and are 
only revealed by the microscope. The study of the 
development of plants in respect to their mere size 
presents us with some curious contrasts. 

2. Some rudimentary plants, such as the Asco- 
jphor% Mold Fungi which so frequently invade our 
bread, and the Aspergilli which we often see forming 
in the fluids we drink glairy repulsive-looking films, 
possess an almost invisible stalk. Woody plants, on 
the contrary, often astonish us by the enormous di- 
mensions of this part. The old authors who describe 
Germany tell us that there were trees there from 
the trunk of one of which boats were made which 
carried as many as thirty men. / From the times of 
antiquity the luxuriant growth of the plane-trees on 
the banks of the Bosporus and the Black Sea has 
been the subject of remark, and the botanists of our 
day have proved that what our forefathers said was 
in no way exaggerated. 

3. Men were almost inclined to disbelieve the ac- 
count of Pliny, who states that in his time there was 
in Lycia a stout thriving plane-tree in the trunk of 
which was seen a vast grotto eighty -one feet in cir- 
cumference, the whole extent of which had been 
tapestried by I^ature with a green and velvety hang- 
ing of moss. Licinius Mutianus, governor of the 



104 THE PLANT WORLD. 

province, charmed with the delicious coolness of this 
rural hall, gave a supper in it to eighteen guests from 
his suite. After the orgy they transformed the scene 
of their festivity into a dormitory, and comfortably 
passed the night there. 

4. This fact has been fully confirmed by modern 
travelers. De Candolle relates that, according to one 
of them, there still exists in the neighborhood of Con- 
stantinople an enormous lime-tree, the trunk of which 
is quite as ample as that of which we have been 
speaking. It is one hundred and fifty feet in circum- 
ference, and also presents a cavity eighty feet in cir- 
cuit. 

5. Ray, .the celebrated English botanist and ge- 
ologist, speaks of an oak existing in his time in Ger- 
many which was of such dimensions that it had been 
transformed into a citadel. To confine ourselves 
more strictly to the truth, let us just say that its inte- 
rior served as a guard-house. We may here mention 
another tree of the same kind, still growing in I^or- 
mandy, and which, in contrast to the other, has been 
consecrated to piety. This is the chapel oak of Al- 
louville, in which there is an altar dedicated to the 
Virgin, where on certain days mass is said. The am- 
ple hollow of this tree not only furnishes an oratory, 
but above this a sleeping-room has been scooped 
out ; there is a bed in this room, to which access 
is gained by steps outside ; it is the abode of an 
anchorite. This tree, which perhaps sheltered in 
its shade the companions of the Seigneur de Bethen- 
court when on their way to embark for the conquest 



GIANTS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 105 

of the Canaries, is held in great veneration in the 
country. 

6. One of our most illustrious and philosophic 
botanists, Marquis, renowned ahke for his eminent po- 
sition and knowledge, measured the trunk of this tree, 
and found that it was thirty feet in circumference 
near the ground. 

7. I have also seen on the banks of the Bosporus 
plane-trees the trunks of which were pierced with 
enormous cavities. In the neighborhood of Smyrna 
there is one of these trees celebrated for its size and 
antiquity. The stem, which is hollowed right through, 
is spread widely out at the base, and represents three 
columns, which converge toward each other, forming 
a sort of porch beneath which a man on horseback 
can pass easily. 

8. Yet the baobab on the banks of the Mger, in 
its splendid luxuriance of growth, surpasses even all 
the giants of the Bosporus. It is especially remark- 
able for its thickness, contrasted with its want of 
height. It is a colossus of ungraceful look. Almost 
always without leaves, bearing them only in the rainy 
season, its whitish conical trunk, scarcely fLfteen to 
twenty feet in height, is more than a hundred feet in 
circumference at the level of the ground. This short 
and robust support is necessary to sustain its incred- 
ibly large dome of leaves, the bulk of which is some- 
times so great that, seen from a distance, the baobab 
looks rather like a small forest than a sin2:le tree. Its 
large branches are fifty to sixty feet long. When 
time has hollowed out the stem of one of these noble 



106 THE PLANT WORLD. 

trees the negroes make use of the cavity. Sometimes 
they turn it into a place of amusement, a rustic re- 
treat where thej can smoke their chibouques and 
take refreshment ; at other times they convert it 
into a prison. One of these is known of which 
the Senegambians have converted the interior into 
a council -hall ; the entrance is covered with sculp- 
tures which point out the high destination reserved 
for it. 

9. But the marvel of the vegetable kingdom in re- 
spect to its colossal dimensions is assuredly the fa- 
mous chestnut-tree growing on the lower slopes of 
Etna. Count Borch, who measured the trunk very 
exactly, accords it a circumference of one hundred 
and ninety feet. A house which shelters a shepherd 
and his flock has been built in the immense hollow of 
its trunk. During the winter the wood of the tree 
serves the inhabitant of this solitary retreat for fuel, 
and its abundance of fruit supplies him with food 
during the summer. 

10. This colossus of our forests, which is called 
the " Chestnut of a Hundred Horses," owes its name to 
the vast extent of its foliage. The inhabitants of the 
country told the painter J. Houel " that Jeanne of 
Aragon, when traveling from Spain to Naples, stopped 
at Sicily, and accompanied by all the nobility of Ca- 
tania, paid a visit to Mount Etna. She was on horse- 
back, as were also her suite, and a storm having come 
on, she took shelter under this tree, the vast foliage 
of which sufliced to protect the queen and all her cav- 
aliers from the rain. It is from this memorable ad- 



GIANTS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 107 

venture, they add, that the old tree took the name of 
Chestnut-tree of the Hundred Horses." 

11. Yet whatever astonishment we may feel at 
the extraordinary dimensions attained by the trunks 
of certain trees, the height to which others reach 
strikes us still more than their growth in diameter. 
The king of our forests, the oak, which poetic fiction 
looks upon as the emblem of passive force, rears its 
crown of leaves one hundred feet above the soil. 

12. In the East the imposing remains of the an- 
cient forest employed in building the temple of Jeru- 
salem, the cedars of Lebanon, the object of so much 
veneration, and which the pilgrim only approaches 
with the sounds of a hymn on his Hps, spread forth 
their dark sheets of verdure to a height of one hun- 
dred and fifty feet above the mountain. 

13. Supported only by its flexible column, which 
yields and bends beneath the force of the tempest, the 
wax-palm on the Andes balances its waving crown in 
the bosom of the clouds two hundred feet above the 
heights whereon it grows. 

14. But no tree rears its head toward the sky so 
boldly as the gigantic cedar of California, the Well- 
ingtonia gigantea. One colossus of this species, now 
hurled down and stretched upon the rock, presented 
when it stood erect and threatening a height of more 
than four hundred and ninety feet — that is to say, 
about eight times the elevation of a house of ^yq 
stories. It was above one hundred and thirty feet in 
circumference. 

15. The bark of the trunk of one of these giants 



108 THE PLANT WORLD. 

of the American forests was transported in part to 
the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, where it formed one 
of the most splendid cnriosities, until accidentally de- 
stroyed by fire in 1866. It was a monstrous column, 
above one hundred and thirty feet in height, and 
which at the level of the ground had a diameter of 
nearly thirty-four feet. I stood inside this tree along 
with fifteen people. At San Francisco a piano was 
placed, and a ball given to more than twenty per- 
sons on the stump of a WelliTigtonia which had been 
brought thither. The age of this colossus corresponds 
to its dimensions. By counting the number of annual 
rings in a transverse section, it was ascertained that 
these monstrous trees must be three or four thou- 
sand years old, so that they seem to have been almost 
contemporary with the biblical creation, and have 
stood erect and unshaken amid all the commotions of 
the globe. 

16. Alongside of these giants stretched prostrate 
on the ground man only looks like a pygmy and feels 
his littleness. He calls them the mammoths of the 
forest, to show that, like those frightful animals which 
surpassed all others in their size, they tower above all 
the vegetable kingdom. One of these cedars, hol- 
lowed out into a deep cavern, owes its name of 
" the Riding School " to the fact that a man on horse- 
back can penetrate sixty-five feet into the dark exca- 
vation. 

17. However, these prodigies of vegetation do not 
seem to be the supreme manifestation of creative 
power. In penetrating into regions of Australia pre- 



GIANTS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 109 

viously quite unknown, some gold-seekers have just 
discovered Eucalypti that surpass in size even the 
WelUngtonia gigantea. Ferdinand Miiller, the bot- 
anist, sajs that trees of the species Eucalyptus amyg- 
dalina four hundred and eighty feet in length, were 
met with lying on the ground ; and this seems per- 
fectly confirmed by the statement of Mr. George 
Eobins, who saw in the mountains of Berwick one of 
these trees standing which had, near the ground, a 
circumference of eighty-one feet, and the height of 
which he estimated at ^yq hundred feet. This Eu- 
calyptus, therefore, could overshadow the Great Pyra- 
mid of Egypt and the spire of the Cathedral of Stras- 
burg, for the former is only four hundred and eighty 
feet in height and the latter four hundred and sixty- 
six. Thus these vegetable giants dethrone all others 
that have hitherto been regarded as the forest mon- 
archs of our globe, and must be added to the marvels 
that Australia may yet have in store for us. 

18. When from these noble trees, proudly cleav- 
ing the clouds with their tops, we pass to those whose 
humble stem creeps upon the ground, we find that 
even the latter at times acquire a length which has 
something of the prodigious in it. Struck with the 
aspect of the vines in Italy, the manifold garlands of 
which entwine from branch to branch, and disap- 
pear amid the foliage of the trees without our being 
able to see either the beginning or the end, Pliny 
maintained that they grow forever : Vites sine fine 
cresGunt^ said the Poman naturalist. But we have 
more precise data as to the size of sundry other plants. 



110 THE PLANT WORLD. 

Thus^ln the virgin forests of India, the Calamus to- 
tang, which climbs upon the trunks of aged trees and 
stretches from one to another, sinking to the ground to 
rise again, attains, according to the traveler Loureiro, 
a length of four hundred to five hundred feet. The 
gigantic Fucus {Fucus giganteus, Linn.) reaches much 
more extraordinary proportions; the waves of the 
ocean, according to Humboldt, yield strips which are 
sometimes fifteen hundred to sixteen hundred feet 
long. 

19. In an interesting 'article in the " Revue Germa- 
nique," M. A. Boscowitz says that in the Botanical 
Garden of Caracas there was a Convolvulus which in 
six months attained the incredible length of six thou- 
sand feet. It must therefore have grown at the rate 
of more than a foot per hour, and its growth must 
have been visible to the naked eye. 

F. A. PoucHET, " The Universe." 



SIX GEE AT GEOUPS OF PLAJSTTS. 

1. Of the many thousand kinds of plants that 
have been discovered growing in different parts of 
the world, only about two hundred and forty kinds 
have been found by men to be really valuable and 
useful. Of course, all the plants the Creator has 
placed in the world serve some useful purpose ; but 
for our own particular use, for food for ourselves or 
our cattle, or as medicines, or materials for building, 



SIX GREAT GROUPS OF PLANTS. m 

for making clotliing, or otlier things, men have found, 
after many centuries of trial, only these two hundred 
and forty kinds that are of real value. Flowering 
plants are not included among these kinds, though a 
fine rose or carnation is useful in making our homes 
beautiful. "We shall therefore add flowering plants 
to the useful plants, and thus greatly increase the 
number of varieties. Forest trees are also useful, 
and in many places are now being cultivated in arti- 
ficial groves ; and these, too, we will include among 
our useful friends. 

2. When we are presented to a large party of 
friends we naturally group them into sets, putting all 
the men together in one group, all the women in an- 
other, and the young folks in another. So now we 
will arrange our friends, the useful plants, into groups 
according to their uses. The first of these are the 
food plants. These include all the plants we can eat, 
either cooked or raw. These are the most important 
of all, and give us more wealth from the ground every 
year than any other group of plants. We could not 
exist in health without the food plants, and whole na- 
tions of people depend wholly upon them. 'Next in 
value to these are the fodder plants — the grasses, oats, 
clover, and others suitable for food for animals. This 
is also a very large and important class, and without 
it we could have very few horses, sheep, or cows. 
These fodder plants bring us great wealth every year 
by enabling us to keep our animals alive, and thus 
get food, milk, hides, and other valuable things. IS'ext 
to the fodder plants come the forest plants, the trees 



112 THE PLANT WORLD. 

that give us wood. Though nearly all wood-giving 
trees grow wild, we must call them useful plants ; for 
wood is the next great supply of wealth we take from 
our lands. Trees are now being cultivated on farms 
for their wood, so that many of the trees we once 
found only in the forests are now cultivated in groves 
like so many apple- or cherry-trees. The next great 
group are the fabric plants, or the plants like the cot- 
ton-plant, from which we may gather materials that 
may be woven into fabrics. There is also one more 
group from which materials are gathered, useful in 
various ways, and these we call the medicine plants. 
These include the hop-vine, the poppy, the indigo- 
plant, and others from which drugs or dye-stuffs are 
obtained. Lastly, are the flowering plants, which in- 
clude all plants that are cultivated for their beauty of 
form, foliage, or blooms. These are quite as much 
useful plants as any, for they are sold in the market 
for money, just like oats or potatoes, and thus are a 
means of winning wealth from the ground. 

3. These six groups of plants include all the use- 
ful plants that can be grown in any part of the United 
States. ]^ot all in each group are equally valuable, 
and in this talk about our useful plants we will select 
only the most important and valuable and those in 
most common use. Some plants, we shall find, may 
be found in two groups — as the turnip and carrot are 
both food plants and fodder plants. Each group can 
also be divided into several minor groups, according 
to the different parts of each plant that are used for 
food or for other purposes. We can also arrange the 



SIX GREAT GROUPS OF PLANTS. 113 

groups in another way, according to the age of the 
plants — as those that live only one year, and those 
that live two or more. We can also arrange them in 
still another way, according to their shape — as those 
that grow quite low on the ground, those that stand 
erect like trees, and those that climb, like vines. This 
arranging of things into groups or classes is called 
classification ; and we shall find it a wonderful help 
in our studies to carry out this work of grouping 
plants, as it enables us to easily remember their habits 
or the manner in which they live and grow, and the 
different uses to which they may be put. In doing 
this we will use only the common names that are 
known in this country. 

4. Names were given to plants long centuries be- 
fore any one thought of the science of botany. But 
these names became greatly changed in time, and 
grew to be quite different in different countries — just 
as we find the onion is zwiebel in G-erman, cebolla in 
Spanish, and oignon in French. The botanists very 
wisely gave new names to all the plants, and by using 
Latin and Greek names made it easy to know the 
botanical names of all plants, because Latin and 
Greek are read by many people in all countries. 
Besides this, the fact that a plant had a botanical 
name known all over the world prevented mistakes 
in naming varieties of plants, and gave them uni- 
versal names well understood in every language. All 
plants having a common name in English have also a 
botanical name ; but we shall find many useful plants 
have no common names, and then we must use the 

9 



114 THE PLANT WORLD. 

botanical names. We shall find many fiowering 
plants with botanical names that perhaps never had 
common names, or, if they had them, they have been 
forgotten, or are fast slipping away, and will in a 
few years be quite unknown. When a plant has 
a common as well as a botanical name, it is often 
the custom to give both, as when we speak of the 
blue larkspur or the Delphinium formosum. We 
will here use only the common names, except where 
the common names are not generally known ; and 
should you wish to know the botanical name of 
any plant, you can easily find it in any good dic- 
tionary. 

5. We will now arrange our friends in these six 
groups : The Food Plants — Almond, asparagus, ar- 
rowroot, apricot, apple, artichoke ; banana, beet, bean, 
barley, buckwheat, broccoli, bread-fruit ; carrot, chives, 
cabbage, celery, corn, corn salad, cauliflower, citron, 
cherry, cucumber, chestnut, coca, cress, currant, cel- 
ery, chicory, coffee, clove ; dandelion, date ; egg-plant, 
endive; '^g\ garlic, gooseberry, ginseng, groundnuts, 
grape, guava ; horseradish ; kale, kohlrabi ; leek, let- 
tuce, lemon, lentil; melon, mulberry, martynia, mustard, 
millet, mushroom ; nutmeg ; oats, olive, onion, okra, 
orange ; papaw, parsnip, parsley, pear, peas, pepper, 
pumpkin, persimmon, potato, pineapple, plum, peach, 
pomegranate ; quince ; radish, rice, rye, rhubarb, ruta- 
baga, raspberry ; salsify, skirret, squash, spinach, sor- 
ghum, sea-kale, sugar-maple, sugar-cane, strawberry, 
sweet potato, sago ; tarnip, tomato, tea ; walnut, wheat ; 
yam. The Fodder Plants — Alfalfa ; buckwheat, 



THE LOTUS. 115 

beans; clover, carrots, corn; grasses; lucerne; man- 
gel-wurzel ; oats ; peas ; rye ; sainfoin ; turnip ; wheat ; 
vetch. The Forest Plants — Ash, aspen ; beech, 
birch ; chestnut, cherry, cedar ; ebony ; hemlock ; 
linden ; maple, mahogany ; oak ; pine ; redwood ; 
spruce ; walnut, willow. The Fabeic Plants — Cot- 
ton ; flax ; hemp ; jute. The Medicine Plants — 
Annotto ; cinnamon, clove, cocoa, castor-oil plant ; 
gourd; hop; indigo; madder; nutmeg; pepper; qui- 
nine; sumach; tobacco. The Flowering Plants — 
This is the largest group of all, for it includes many 
plants that are cultivated for other purposes than 
their flowers or fohage. 

6. These are the names of some of our friends, 
the useful plants. There are many more, and no 
doubt you can easily think of others, particularly 
among the forest plants and flowering plants. Make 
a list of all you know in your State or neighborhood, 
and endeavor to understand to which of these six 
classes they belong. 

Charles Barnard, " Talks about our Useful Plants.'* 



THE LOTUS. 



1. There has been considerable dispute concern- 
ing the lotus, as the name is now applied to several 
distinct species, none of which bear the rich fruit so 
well known to the ancients, and concerning which so 



116 THE PLANT WORLD. 

many charming legends have been told. It was be- 
lieved that this fruit ^vas so delightful that those who 
ate of it would never leave the spot where it grew, 
but for it would abandon home and friends to spend 
their lives in a dream of serene delight. Homer, in 
the " Odyssey," mentions the lotus-eaters, who lived 
on the northern coast of Africa, and records their 
attempts to detain the followers of Ulysses by giving 
them the fruit of the lotus to eat, so that they should 
never wish to leave the spot where it grew. The 
same poetical idea is known to the Arabs, who call it" 
the " fruit of destiny," which is to be eaten in Para- 
dise, and it is on this foundation that Tennyson built 
his charming poem of the " Lotus-Eaters " : 

" The charmed sunset lingered low adown 

In the red west ; through mountain clefts the dale 

Was seen far inland, and the yellow down 
Bordered with palm and many a winding vale 

And meadow set with slender galingale. 
A land where all things always seemed the same ! 

And round about the keel with faces pale, 
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, 
The mild-eyed, melancholy lotus-eaters came ! 

" Branches they bore of the enchanted stem 

Laden with flower and fruit whereof they gave 

To each, but who so did receive of them 
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave 

Far, far away did seem to moan and rave 
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, 

His voice was thin as voices from the grave ; 
And deep asleep he seemed, yet all awake. 
And music in his ears his beating heart did make. 



THE LOTUS. 117 

'' They sat them down upon the yellow sand, 
Between the sun and moon upon the shore, 

And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, 
Of child, and wife, and slave ; but evermore 

Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar, 
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam ; 

Then some one said, ' We will return no more ' ; 
And all at once they sang, ' Our island home 
Is far beyond the wave ; we will no longer roam. ' " 

2. Among the many varieties of the lotus now 
known are a few which bear edible fruits, in some 
cases tasting like a date, and in others somewhat like 
gingerbread. The mythical lotus has been identified 
by several botanists with the former or tliat indige- 
nous to Tunis, which best agrees with the description 
of Polybius, who describes it as a thorny shrub with 
berries of the size of an olive. Mungo Park found a 
species of lotus in Central Africa bearing berries of a 
delicious taste, which, on being dried and pounded, 
made very wholesome and pleasant bread. The lotus 
fruit found in Tunis has a stimulating, almost intoxi- 
cating effect, and it is therefore probable that this 
plant furnished the foundation of the ancient legends. 
The sacred lotus of the Egyptians was a fine aquatic 
plant, dedicated to Osiris and Isis, and regarded in 
Egyptian delineations as signifying the creation of 
the world. Distinct from this lotus was that known 
as the blue lotus of the Nile, also a sacred plant. 
Both these species of the lotus occur frequently .as 
religious symbols and decorations in the temples, 
and they also appear as favorite subjects for Chi- 



118 THE PLANT WORLD. 

nese and Hindoo art in connection with religious 

worship. 

Anonymous, " A World of Wonders." 



THE HABITATIOJST OF PLAISTTS. 

1. Plants are by no means indifferent to chmate. 
They have their appropriate soils and temperature. 
Some are found only in wild places, while others 
flourish in cultured grounds. Many are natives of 
sandy regions — while a few have their home among 
the rocks. Some can live only on marshy grounds, 
where they are seen covering the surface of the water. 
Finally, the sea has its vegetation — a vegetation which, 
in its luxuriance, is unsurpassed by that of the most 
favored land on the globe. 

2. There is scarcely a spot of earth where some 
vegetation can not be found ; but the difference be- 
tween the torrid, the temperate, and the frigid zones, 
in this respect, is really immense. If we would see 
vegetation in all its power and majesty, we must go 
to the region between the tropics. There is that 
colossus of the vegetable world, the baobab, with a 
trunk thirty metres in circumference. There the 
palms live and flourish — that remarkable family — 
compared with which our finest trees show at a dis- 
advantage. In those climates the grasses become 
shrubs and the ferns rise to the height of eight or 
nine metres. It is the region, also, of the most ex- 



THE HABITATION OF PLANTS. 119 

quisite fruits and the most delicious perfumes. ISTo- 
where is vegetation so vigorous and prolific as in those 
countries where it is nursed by the fervors of a trop- 
ical sun, and by the moisture of great and overflowing 
streams. 

3. But this exuberance of life, while it increases 
the ability of the strong, would be fatal to the weak. 
Transport to these fiery climes a frail, delicate 
parisieniie, and how soon will she fade — ^how quickly 
and inevitably she will perish! Thus are we ever 
making comparisons between the two kingdoms — 
comparisons resulting from the fact that out of one 
great creation, unique and single, as it came from the 
hand of God, we, in our pride, have chosen to make 
three. Who is able precisely to tell where one of 
these three kingdoms ends and the other begins ? 

4. ]^atural history is a vast chain in which not a 
single link is missing, and vainly have the magnates 
of science sought to find a broken place. On the 
borders of the mineral kingdom there are individuals 
that vegetate, while upon those of the vegetable king- 
dom are some that live. 

5. Great heat, unaccompanied by humidity, is not 
favorable to vegetation. Thus the difference is vast 
between the countries just referred to and the sandy 
deserts of Africa, parched by a burning sun — those 
deserts to explore which seems to be like devoting 
one's self to destruction — those deserts which, on 
every side, offer no images but those of desolation 
and death ! High degrees of heat are not fatal to all 
vegetation. Some plants have been known to resist 



120 THE PLANT WORLD. 

a temperature of eighty, and even of a hundred de- 
grees — the latter being the point (centigrade) at which 
water boils. In the hot springs at Dax, a tremella 
has been seen to grow and to mature in the water of 
a fountain which indicates constantly a temperature 
of seventy to seventy-two degrees. 

6. If the vegetation of temperate climes has not 
the splendor and the magnificence of tropical plants, 
it is not inferior to them in graceful foiTus or in 
abundance of products. Even the north can make its 
boast in this respect; for there are seen, towering 
toward the clouds, the lofty pine and hardy fir-tree. 
On mountains, however, these trees are not found at 
the elevation of two thousand metres and upward. 
In their place we find the lote-tree and the birch — 
trees that can brave a temperature of forty degrees 
below zero — a degree of cold sufficient to split the 
stoutest fir. This phenomenon — the cracking of trees 
in cold weather — was frequently noticed by the French 
soldiers during the disastrous Russian campaign. On 
one occasion a company of those poor fellows had 
seated themselves on the snow in the hope of getting 
some rest, when they heard near them a succession of 
violent explosions. " The enemy again ! " said they ; 
" always at our heels ! with this iron sky above us, 
and these boundless deserts of snow before us!" 
With a desperate energy tliey seize their arms and 
advance toward the spot from which the sound came. 
But they find nothing there except trees, which the 
intensity of the frost had burst with reports resem- 
bling those of cannon. 



THE HABITATION OF PLANTS. 121 

7. The more nearly we approach the poles, the 
fewer plants we find. In Spitzbergen, in Greenland, 
and in Kamtschatka the number of species does not 
exceed thirty. 

8. Vegetation not only reaches to the tops of lofty 
mountains, but penetrates to the greatest depths. It 
is found in the very entrails of the earth — its darkest 
caverns and deepest mines. Yet at these two ex- 
tremities of height and depth it is limited to mush- 
rooms and mosses. In the ascent of a lofty mountain, 
one will find nearly the same changes in the vegeta- 
tion which are noticed in traveling from the equator 
toward the north pole. At the foot of the mountain 
may be seen the plants which abound on level regions 
in the south of Europe. The lower zone is occupied 
by oaks. Five or six hundred feet above, beeches 
grow. Still higher are yews, pines, and firs. Then 
comes the lote-tree, the birch, and the rhododendron. 
Higher still are daphnes, globularia, and the ligneous 
cistacese. In the snowy regions will be seen the saxi- 
frages and the primroses. Last of all come the 
lichens. 

9. The vegetation which is now feeble may in 
time become abundant and vigorous. Great changes 
are constantly going on. Marshes are becoming dry, 
and rocks, which are now bleak and bare, will here- 
after, perhaps, sustain majestic trees. In swamps, the 
surface of the water is at first covered with a greenish 
scum. This consists of the frail plants called con- 
fervas, to which succeed the sedge, the reed, and the 
reed-mace. Then follow the mosses, which multiply 



122 THE PLANT WORLD. 

with prodigious rapidity. As this vegetation goes on, 

the decaying matter gradually reduces the water, 

which at length disappears. And the case is similar 

with the rocks. Crustaceous lichens "first cover their 

surfaces with marble hues. From the decomposition 

of these spring lichens of a different sort. Upon 

their remains, at a later period, the grasses take root ; 

and at length from this ever-increasing vegetable mold 

rise the ligneous plants. 

10. We have already remarked that among plants 

particular families inhabit particular regions. But 

there is one family — that of the cereal grains — which 

adapts itself to every clime. Admirable provision of 

that Providence which, when it gave the earth to 

man, determined that he should meet at every step 

with the evidences of its paternal and superintending 

care ! 

Count Fcelix, " Flowers Personified." 



THE YICTOEIA EEGIA. 

1. We re-entered the canoe, which, under the or- 
der of the major-domo, hugged the left bank until we 
came to a narrow inlet, up which we turned. Julio, 
to whom all the canals and lakes of the TJcayali were 
familiar, immediately recognized the entrance to the 
I^una Lake, and asked our guide what we were going 
to do. " See the atun sisac,'^^ he said. Although I 
understood the Quichua words atun sisac to signify 




! 



THE VICTORIA REGIA. 123 

great flowers, they did not conyej an idea of their 
family, of their shape, or color, and I was anxious to 
learn whether the flowers in question were worth the 
chance we underwent on their account of being de- 
voured by mosquitoes, which, as we pushed farther 
into the canal, came around us in clouds which seemed 
to increase in density as we proceeded farther. 

2. I had already been bitten by some thousands 
of these insects, and had crushed fifty or so, which was 
quite an insufficient vengeance, when Eustace called 
out in his broken voice, " Here we are ! " I immedi- 
ately stretched my head out of the canopy. The 
canal lay behind us. Directly in front stretched a 
sheet of water of so strange and marvelous an aspect 
that I was inclined to embrace the major-domo in 
gratitude for having spontaneously brought me to 
witness it. But, recalling the fetid odor of the man's 
breath, I repressed this inclination, and contented 
myself by expressing with a look and a smile the 
-pleasure he had given me. 

3. The waters of this lake were black as ink, and 
reflected neither the light of the sky nor the rays of the 
sun ; it was about six miles in circumference, and was 
fringed by a thick curtain of vegetation. Its surface 
at certain parts was covered with Nijmjphma^ whose 
gigantic leaves were of a brownish-green tint {^eH- 
pralin)^ which contrasted with the ruddy wine-color 
of their turned-up borders. Mingled with these 
leaves, magnificent flowers were in full blossom, 
whose petals, of a milky whiteness outside, were 
brightened inside with a dull-red tint, with center 



124 THE PLANT WORLD. 

markings of a darkish violet. These flowers — ^in con- 
sequence of their enormous development and the size 
of their buds, which resembled ostriches' eggs — might 
have been taken as representatives of an antediluvian 
flora. Quite a multitude of stilt-plovers, ibises, ja- 
canas, anhunas, savacus, Brazilian ostriches, and 
spoonbills disported themselves on this splendid 
carpet, and added to the striking character of the 
scene, while serving as objects of comparison by 
which the observer could judge of the size of the 
leaves and flowers, which these birds shook bj their 
movements without possessing sufficient weight to 
submerge them. 

4. After having enjoyed the view of this brilhant 
example of intertropical vegetation, I became desir- 
ous of possessing a specimen. My men pushed the 
canoe into this network of leaves and flowers, and, 
with the help of a woodman's axe, I was able to de- 
tach a flower and a bud from their stout stems, which 
were covered with hairs three or four inches in 
length. The leaves of the plant, anchored to the 
bottom of the water by spiny stems the size of a 
ship's cable, resisted the combined efforts of my men, 
and I was compelled to cut one a few inches only be- 
low the surface. This leaf, perfectly smooth above, 
was divided below into a multitude of compartments, 
with subdivisions of very regular form, the lateral 
partitions of which, bristling with prickles, were 
one inch in depth. Laid out flat on the canopy of 
our canoe, this marvelous hydrophyte covered it 
entirely. 



THE VICTORIA REGIA. 125 

5. I passed nearly an hour standing up in the 
canoe, in order to examine, as a whole and in detail, 
this lake of black water and these white flowers, from 
which I could not take my ejes ; then, having made 
a sketch of the place, I gave the order for onr return 
to Schetica-Playa, where I arrived with the leaf, the 
flower, and the bud which I had just secured, and of 
which I was prouder than old Demetrius Poliorcetes 
of a new city added to the list of his conquests. 

6. On landing, 1 had two sticks arranged as a 
cross, on which I placed the leaf of the Wymphoea, 
and by means of which two men carried it to the 
camp. Julio preceded and made a way through the 
rushes with the blows of a saber. My vegetable 
trophy arrived without hindrance at its destination, 
and I hastened before the heat should have affected 
it to examine and describe its various parts. The 
weight of the still moist leaf, as ascertained by means 
of a steelyard which Eustace employed to weigh out 
the salt to his flshermen, was thirteen pounds and a 
half; its circumference was twenty-four feet nine 
inches three lines. The flower, which measured four 
feet two inches round, and of which the exterior 
petals were nine inches in length, weighed three 
pounds and a half. The bud weighed two pounds 
and a quarter. I deposited the flower and bud in a 
basket ; I then cut the immense leaf into eight pieces, 
which I wrapped in paper in order to preserve them 
in the interests of science. 

7. This work completed, I drew Eustace aside in 
order that my men might not overhear what I had to 



126 THE PLANT WORLD. 

say to him, and, having thanked him for the agree- 
able surprise he had given me, I announced to him 
the early departure of the reverend Plaza from Sara- 
yacu, suggesting that he should not prolong his stay 
at Schetica-Playa if he wished to receive the blessing 
of the future bishop. But this news, which I ex- 
pected would have stupefied, upset, or even sobered 
him, only provoked his ridicule. He pretended that 
I wanted to make fun of him ; and to show that it 
was he, Eustace — who, on the contrary, was amused 
with me — ^he looked at me askance, winked, and ap- 
phed the bottle to his hps. To cut the matter short — 
as it signified little to me whether the man believed my 
statement or not — I left him to drink and wink at his 
ease, and, waving my hand by way of adieu, entered 
the boat, which soon stood off from Schetica-Playa. 

8. The giant Wymjphwa we carried with us formed 
the subject of conversation for some minutes. Ac- 
cording to Julio and his companions, certain lakes in 
the interior are so thickly covered with this plant that 
a boat can not make its way through the inextricable 
network of stalks and stems, crossed, interlaced, and 
bound together like the liana of a virgin submarine 
forest. As before stated, the riverside tribes of the 
Ucayali call this WymphcBa in Quichua atun sisao 
(the large flower). Among the Indians of the upper 
Amazon it goes by the name of iapunauaopS ; among 
those of the lower Amazon by that of jurupary- 
teanha ; and in the south, near the sources of the 
affluents of the right bank of this river, Guaranis, on 
whose territory it also flourishes, call it irupe. 



THE VICTORIA REGIA. 127 

9. This l^ymjphcea^ of wMch the penetrating odor 
recalls at once that of the reinette-apple and the ba- 
nana, appeared to me, from the resemblance in size 
and color, to be of the same gemis as the J^ymphcea 

Yicto7'ia or regia, found bj Haehne on the Rio 
Grande; bj d'Orbignj, on the San Jose, an affluent 
of the Parana; by Poeppig, in a pool {igarape) of 
the Amazon ; by Schomberg, in English Guiana ; and 
lastly, by Bridges, on the Jacouma, a tributary of the 
Eio Grande. 

10. In his monograph on European hothouse 
plants, Yan Houte, who has painted and described 
this splendid JS'ymphcBacece — of which the Jardin des 
Plantes, in Paris, possesses a specimen in its aquarium 
— ^has painted the exterior petals of the flower a pure 
white; those which immediately succeed are of a deli- 
cate pink tint ; while, as the center is reached, they 
display a uniform China-rose color, of an intensity 
and brilliancy very different from the dull pink and 
violet tints of the flower found by us on the Lake 
^una. We may point out, in passing, that the geo- 
graphical habitat of this plant, which extends from 
the Ucayali to the Tefle and from English Guiana to 
the plain of Moxos, adds still more to the surprise 
and admiration which are awakened by its extraordi- 
nary dimensions. 

Paul Marcoy, " Travels in South America." 



128 THE PLANT WORLD. 



THE AEAB TO THE PALM. 

1. ]^EXT to thee, O fair gazelle, 

O Beddowee girl, beloved so well ; 

2. l^ext to the fearless J^edjidee, 

Whose fleetness shall bear me again to thee ; 

3. 'Next to ye both, I love the palm, 

With his leaves of beauty, his fruit of balm ; 

4. Next to ye both, I love the tree 
Whose fluttering shadow wraps us three 
With love and silence and mystery ! 

6. Our tribe is many, our poets vie 
With any under the Arab sky ; 
Yet none can sing of the palm but I. 

6. The marble minarets that begun 
Cairo's citadel-diadem 

Are not so light as his slender stem. 

7. He lifts his leaves in the sunbeam's glance. 
As the Almehs lift their arms in dance — 

8. A slumberous motion, a passionate sign. 
That works in the cells of the blood like wine. 

9. Full of passion and sorrow is he. 
Dreaming where the beloved may be ; 



THE ARAB TO THE PALM. 129 

10. And when the warm south winds arise, 
He l)reathes his longing in fervid sighs, 

11. Quickening odors, kisses of balm. 

That drop in the lap of his chosen palm. 

12. The sun may flame, and the sands may stir, 
But the breath of his passion reaches her. 

13. O tree of love, by that love of thine, 
Teach me how I shall soften mine ! 

14. Give me the secret of the sun, 
Whereby the wooed is ever won! 

15. If I were a king, O stately tree, 
A likeness, glorious as might be. 

In the court of my palace I'd build for thee ; 

16. With a shaft of silver, burnished bright, 
And leaves of beryl and malachite ; 

IT. With spikes of golden bloom ablaze, 
And fruits of topaz and chrysoprase ; 

18. And there the poets, in thy praise, 
Should night and morning frame new lays — 

19. 'New measures, sung to tunes divine ; 
But none, O palm, should equal mine ! 

Bayard Taylor. 



10 



130 THE PLANT WORLD. 



THE LIFE OF PLAIS'TS. 

1. In tlie harmony of the spheres, everything is 
in a state of mobihty and perpetual transmutation. 
The heavens are tenanted with new nebulae, and old 
stars disappear in the abyss of immensity. On the 
earth new generations of animals and plants arise, 
while the scythe of Time mows down those which but 
lately flourished there. On the one hand, the mass 
of animated matter visibly reveals its vitality ; while, 
on the other side, its occult forces hide themselves 
and act only in the most hidden recesses of the organ- 
ism. But all is carried away by the supreme power 
of life — ^that inexphcable and unfathomable mystery ! 

2. We behold animals which at a certain season, 
and at a given moment, display themselves in irresist- 
ible power, or disappear, providentially guided by an 
unknown force. Sometimes it seems as if a ray of 
light attracted them, while darkness drives them away ; 
at other times it is the reverse. 

3. When night begins to spread its somber shades 
over the earth, legions of twilight-loving moths flit 
heavily near their haunts, while the bat, issuing from 
its ruins, shakes its membranous wings and launches 
itself in pursuit of these insects. Some delicate mol- 
lusks rise toward d«,wn to the surface of the sea, and 
sink beneath its waves so soon as ever the sun gilds 
its undulating ripples. 

4. Again, we behold plants or their corollas dis- 
playing themselves and opening according to the sea- 



THE LIFE OF PLANTS. 131 

sons and hours of the day. So exact are they in their 
movements that a sagacious observer, attentively fol- 
lowing up these phenomena, soon sees that by means 
of them he can arrange calendars and clocks, all the 
divisions of which the charming goddess of flowers 
indicates accurately with her finger. 

5. It is known that Pliny, having noted with care 
the times at which plants flower, conceived the idea 
that we might make use of them to mark the different 
seasons of the year. Cuvier even asserts that the 
Eoman naturalist proposed to arrange a complete 
floral calendar ; but the project was first thoroughly 
carried out by Linnseus, and it is one of the most ele- 
gant conceptions of his genius. 

6. This floral calendar is accurate enough, and we 
can see that each month of the year is exactly indi- 
cated by the blooming of certain flowers. The first 
month, despite its snow and ice, sees the black helle- 
bore flower. During the second the alder shakes its 
catkins and the mezereon seems to smile on the spring, 
scattering its flowerets over its boughs. In March 
the wall-flower decorates the old walls with its golden 
corollas, and in our gardens the crown-imperial opens 
its treacherous bells. The following month the peri- 
winkle expands its leafy network in the shadow of 
our forests. In May, flowers abound ; the iris, the 
lily of the valley, and the lilac perfume the air on 
every side. During the months of June and July 
Flora parades all the pomp of her empire ; the fox- 
glove, the sage, the wild poppy, the mint, and the 
pink bloom in our fields and woods. In August, the 



132 THE PLANT WORLD. 

asters, dahlias, and heliantlius seem to brave the heat 
of the sun. Finally, in September, the colchicum 
scatters its purplish flowers all over our meadows, and 
announces the return of winter. It is the plant which, 
according to Linneeus, gives the signal of repose to 
the botanist. 

7. The hour at which each flower opens is itself 
so uniform that by watching them floral clocks of 
sufficient accuracy can be arranged. Father Kircher 
had dreamed of it, but vaguely and without pointing 
out anything ; it is to Linnaeus that we must ascribe 
the ingenious idea of indicating all the hours by the 
time at which plants open or shut their corollas. The 
Swedish botanist had created a flower clock for the 
climate which he inhabited, but, as in our latitudes a 
more brilliant and radiant dawn rnakes the flower 
earlier, Lamarck was obliged to construct for France 
another clock, which is a little in advance of that at 
Upsala. 

8. This regularity in the opening of flowers strikes 
every person ; some savage races make use of it to 
divide their days and their toils. These begin at the 
hour when the marigold opens, and the JS'atchez, 
Chateaubriand says, make their love appointments for 
the time when the last rays of day are about to close 
the flowers of the Hibiscus. 

9. Other flowers, less regular in their habits, only 
open under the influence of certain atmospheric con- 
ditions, from which they have acquired the surname 
of meteoric. Some of them have gained considera- 
ble celebrity. Among these is the rain-marigold, 



THE LIFE OF PLANTS. 133 



which, so soon as the dark clouds begin to 
closes its corolla with the greatest care to preserve it 
from the storm. The Siberian sow-thistle, of totally 
different habits, accustomed to hoar-frost, seems to 
dread our sun ; it only expands when the sky is 
cloudy, and closes its flowerets tightly up as soon as 
the atmosphere gets warm. 

10. The connection between man and the vege- 
table kingdom is not limited to these curious investi- 
gations ; plants, living emblems of the rapid passage 
of hours and time itself, eternal lessons of wisdom, 
are associated with all our wants, our pleasures, and 
our pains. The hardiest trees serve to build our 
dwellings with ; other plants form our most natural 
food. 

11. Sometimes the existence of certain tribes de- 
pends on a single vegetable species. A palm which 
grows in the forests at the mouth of the Orinoco suf- 
fices for all the wants of some savage races, who, in 
company with the monkeys, live almost constantly 
perched, as it were, in the midst of its fohage. It 
yields them food, wine, and even cordage to swing 
the hammocks on, in which they suspend themselves 
during the inundations. 

12. In all ages men have prized the beauty and 
perfume of flowers, and they have become an indis- 
pensable ornament of even the least important festi- 
val. The ancients had their '' coronary plants " ; 
these were consecrated to Yenus, and at feasts each 
guest wore a chaplet. But we must also do them the 
justice to remark that they employed an ample series 



134 THE PLANT WORLD. 

of " funereal plants " for the mournful ceremonies of 
death ; each one had its mission or special significa- 
tion. 

F. A. PoucHET, " The Universe." 



SEA-WEEDS. 

1. On the rocky coasts of the Falkland Islands 
are found astonishing masses of enormous sea- weeds, 
chiefly belonging to the genera Macrocystis^ Lessonia, 
and Durmllea. Rent from the rocks to which they 
were attached and cast ashore, they are rolled by the 
heavy surf into prodigious vegetable cables, much 
thicker than a man's body and several hundred feet 
long. Many of the rarest and most beautiful algae 
may be here discovered, which have either been 
wrenched from inaccessible rocks far out at sea, 
along with the larger species, or have attached them- 
selves parasitically to their stems and fronds. Many 
of them remind the botanist, by some similarity of 
form, of the sea-weeds of his distant home, while 
others tell him at once that he is far away in an- 
other hemisphere. The gigantic lessonias particularly 
abound about these islands. Their growth resembles 
that of a tree. The stem attains a height of from 
eight to ten feet, the thickness of a man's thigh, and 
terminates in a crown of leaves two or three feet long, 
and drooping hke the branches of a weeping- willow. 
They form large submerged forests, and, like the 



SEA-WEEDS. 135 

thickets of the macrocjstis, afford a refuge and a 
dwelling to countless sea-animals. 

2. A similar abundance of colossal algse is found 
in the northern Pacific, about the Kurile and Aleutian 
Islands, and along the deeply indented and channel- 
furrowed northwest coast of America. 

3. Thus the Wereocystis lutheana forms dense 
forests in ISTorfolk Bay and all about Sitka. Its 
stem, resembling whipcord, and often above three 
hundred feet long, terminates in a large air-vessel, six 
or seven feet long, and crowned with a bunch of 
dichotomous leaves, each thirty or forty feet in length. 
Dr. Mertens assures us that the sea-otter, when fish- 
ing, loves to rest upon the colossal air-vessels of this 
giant among the sea-weeds, while the long, tenacious 
stems furnish the rude fishermen of the coast with 
excellent tackle. The growth of the nerebcystis must 
be uncommonly rapid, as it is an annual plant, and 
consequently develops its gigantic proportions during 
the course of one brief summer. 

4. Before proceeding to the third chief group of 
marine plants, the red sea- weeds, or Bhodosjoerons^ I 
must mention the enormous fucus banks, or floating 
meadows of the Atlantic, which form undoubtedly 
one of the greatest wonders of the ocean. 

5. We know that the mighty Gulf Stream, which 
rolls its indigo-blue floods from America to the oppo- 
site coasts of the Old World, flows partly southward 
in the neighborhood of the Azores, and is ultimately 
driven back again to America. In the midst of these 
circuitous streams, from 22° to 3G° ]^. lat,, and from 



136 THE PLANT WORLD. 

35° to 65° W. long., extends a sea without any other 
currents than those resulting from the temporary ac- 
tion of the winds. This comparatively tranquil part 
of the ocean, the surface of which surpasses at least 
twenty times that of the British Isles, is found more 
or less densely covered with floating masses of Bargas- 
sum hacciferum. Often the sea-weed surrounds the 
ship sailing through these savannas of the sea in such 
quantities as to retard its progress, and then again hours 
may pass when not a single fucus appears. While 
Columbus was boldly steering through the hitherto 
unknown fields of the Sargasso Sea, the fears of his 
timorous associates were increased by this singular 
phenomenon, as they believed they had now reached 
the bounds of the navigable ocean, and must inevi- 
tably strike against some hidden rock, if their com- 
mander persevered in his audacious course. 

6. It is an interesting fact that the Sargasso Sea af- 
fords the most remarkable example of an aggregation 
of plants belonging to one single species. Nowhere 
else, according to Humboldt, neither in the savannas 
of America, nor on the heaths or in the pine forests 
of northern Europe, is such a uniformity of vegeta- 
tion found as in those boundless maritime meadows. 

7. " The masses of sea-weeds," says Meyen, " cov- 
ering so vast an extent of ocean have ever since the 
time of Columbus been the object of astonishment 
and inquiry. Some navigators believe that they are 
driven together by the Gulf Stream, and that the 
same species of Sargassum plentifully occurs in the 
Mexican Sea ; this is, however, perfectly erroneous. 



SEA-WEEDS. 137 

8. " Humboldt was of opinion tliat this marine 
plant originally grows on submarine banks, from 
which it is torn by various forces ; I, for my part, 
have examined many thousands of specimens, and 
venture to affirm that they never have been attached 
to any sohd body. Freely floating in the water, they 
have developed their young germs, and sent forth on 
all sides roots and leaves, both of the same nature." 

9. Thus the Sargassum seems to be the indige- 
nous production of the sea where it appears, and to 
have floated there from time immemorial. Its swim- 
ming islands aflord an abode and nourishment to a 
prodigious amount of animal life. They are gener- 
ally covered with elegant sertularias, colored vorticel- 
las, and other strange forms of marine existence. Ya- 
rious naked or nudibranchiate mollusks and annehdes 
attach themselves to the fronds, and afford nourish- 
ment to hosts of fishes and crustaceans, the beasts 
of prey of this little world. 

10. Similar aggregations of sea- weeds are also met 
with in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, in the com- 
paratively tranquil spaces encircled by rotatory cur- 
rents. Their rare occurrence on the surface of the 
sea may serve as a proof of the restless motion of its 
waters. Were the ocean not everywhere intersected 
by currents, it would most likely be covered with sea- 
weeds, opposing serious if not invincible obstacles to 
navigation. 

11. The red sea-weeds {Ehodosj^erms or Flori- 
decB) are by far the most numerous in species, and 
undoubtedly the most beautiful and perfect of all tlie 



138 THE PLANT WOilLD. 

algse. Thej love neither light nor motion, and gen- 
erally seek the shade of larger plants on the perpen- 
dicular sides of the deep tide-pools removed from the 
influences of the tides and gales. They mostly grow 
close to low- water mark, and are to be seen only for 
an hour or two at the spring tides, during which, as is 
well known, the deepest ebbs take place. To this 
group belong the wonderfully delicate polysiphonias, 
callithamnias, plocamias, and delesserias, whose elegant 
rosy scarlet or purple leaves are the amateur's delight, 
and when laid out on paper resemble the finest tra- 
cery, defying the painter's art to do justice to their 
beauty. It likewise numbers among its genera the 
chalky corallines and nullipores, which on account of 
the hardness of their substance were formerly consid- 
ered to be polyps, but whose true nature becomes ap- 
parent on examining their internal structure. 

12. The Chondrus crisjpus^ or carrigeen, which 
grows in such vast quantities on the coasts of the 
British Isles, also belongs to the rhodosperms, though 
when growing, as it frequently does in shallow tide- 
pools, exposed to full sunhght, its dark -purple color 
fades into green or even yellowish white. When 
boiled it almost entirely dissolves in the water, and 
forms on cooling a colorless and almost tasteless jelly 
which of late years has been largely used in medi- 
cine as a substitute for Iceland moss. Similar nutri- 
tious gelatines, which also serve for the manufacture 
of strong glues, are yielded by other species of rho- 
dosperms, among others by the Gracillaria spvnosa of 
the Indian Ocean, which the Salangana {Hirundo escu- 



AN AUTUMN GARLAND. I39 

lenta\ a bird allied to the swallow, is said principally 
to use for the construction of her edible nest. 

G. Hartwig, " The Sea and its Living Wonders." 



AN AUTUMN GAELAJSTD. 

1. Sunny, golden autumn, after the glaring heats 
of midsummer, how welcome ! Spring nor summer 
can not match these charming September mornings 
and October afternoons. The sun runs high no 
longer, but comes in aslant under the trees and lights 
up everything with a golden glow. We are glad the 
tropic heat is past ; but we stretch out our hands and 
try to grasp the delicious warmth of this autumn 
weather, fearing it will not last. Yet we have to 
thank that fervent summer sun for all which glad- 
dens us now — these wide emerald fields, these leafy 
bowers, this rich luxuriance of fruit. It was that sul- 
try fervency that brought the green into the leaves, 
and the gay colors to the flowers, and the soft ripe- 
ness into the fruit. Kindly fall the slanting rays now, 
greeting the nodding golden-rod, purpling the grapes 
upon the wall, giving another warm touch to the red 
sides of the apples, another yellow glow to the pump- 
kins and squashes. 

2. How beautiful are the rich landscapes spread 
out before our eyes ! Joseph's coat of many colors is 
outvied by the variegated hues of field and forest. 



140 THE PLANT WORLD. 

Tliere is a splendor, an imperial royalty in our north- 
ern autumn which makes the other seasons seem tame. 
There is an appropriateness, a fitness, in the ancient 
symbol which gives to winter the form of a stern 
Titan, to spring the lithe robustness of an Apollo, to 
summer the grace of a Hebe, while autumn has the 
majesty and maturity of a Juno. Autumn is queen of 
the seasons, a tiara-crowned empress, whose glowing 
robes of red and purple and saifron rival all the 
vaunted products of Babylonian or Tyrian looms. She 
reigns supreme, and in her realm are perpetual rest 
and beauty and tenderness. 

3. There is no exhausting heat, no burning sun- 
shine, as we wander, forth into the " happy autumn 
fields." The grass is still soft and green, the vines 
are still hanging in full, rich clusters along the 
roadsides. From the orchards float a sweet-apple 
odor. Tall cat-tails stick up their sceptered heads 
from the brookside, and the drooping, fleecy Clematis 
clamber the fences and hedges. Golden -rods, the 
same that peered over the stone walls in the last days 
of August, yet nod to us in these still, October days, 
climbing up higher and higher in a thick tangle of 
greenness, for these autumn flowers do not hurry 
away as did the delicate anemones — the wind-flowers 
— opening to the breeze, then floating off upon its 
zephyrs. They are all stout, vigorous herbs that do 
not care when the warm days of September give way 
to chill and cold, and the bright afternoons suddenly 
fall into damp evenings. And these fall afternoons 
are short, though charming ; the sun sinks do^vn at 



AN AUTUMN GARLAND. 141 

once, and it is night before we are aware the day is 
gone. 

4. But our wandering has not been in vain. Our 
arms are full of drooping vines, bright colors, and 
feathery waves — wild-flower spoils of the fields and 
the woods — which we weave into a beautiful garland 
that has all the mellowness of the autumn days to- 
gether with their brilliant coloring. Here is a bunch 
of fringed gentians with their corollas — 

" Blue, blue, as if the sky let fall 
A flower from its cerulean wall," 

as Bryant sings, though, indeed, the color is of a pur- 
pler tinge than the sky. This particular bunch we 
gathered on the border of a hillside road, shut in by 
a sandy slope, where the sun shone warmly. The 
flower grows on a tall footstalk, with a long, bell- 
shaped calyx, out of which press its fringed edges. 
It is a coy, maidenly flower only coming to its finder 
after diligent search ; but one feels repaid. There 
are several varieties of the gentian in this region, and 
all are pretty. 

5. In this autumn bouquet we have arranged many 
bright-colored berries which are now among the most 
noticeable glories of the hedges and meadows. There 
are the orange and scarlet berries of the bitter-sweet 
(Celastrus), whose leaves have a fresh, yellowish, 
springlike greenness till late into the fall. Sandmched 
between these are the milk-white berries of the co- 
hosh, or white baneberry, and the black-purple fruit 
of the elder ; then come the deep-red seeds of the 



142 THE PLANT WORLD. 

dwarf cornus, sometimes called bunch-berries, each 
set, as the flower was, in a frame made by four 
or RvG oval leaves; and, when we can find them, 
baneberry plumes, which are among the finest of 
all the autumn splendors, the red juice deepening 
into coral berries that glow all along its leaves 
and cause the branch to droop gracefully like a 
plume. 

6. Golden-rods in bewildering variety glow in 
our lovely garland — all beautiful and stately as a 
czarina. Some of these shoot up into tall plumes ; 
others hang gracefully, the flowers rising from the 
upper side of the stalk in clusters. The leaves, too, 
of the different varieties differ in shape. There are 
a dozen species in this bunch, the search for which 
has led us along pleasant lanes and hedges in the 
dreamy autumn afternoon. 

T. Closely allied to the golden-rods are the As- 
ters — a sort of cousins, in fact — both belonging to the 
great family of Compositm. These are now in their 
season of glory, more than one hundred species being 
found in America, all gay and showy, with corymbed, 
panicled, or racemose heads ; flowers radiate, the rays 
white, purple, or blue and fertile, the disk yellow or 
reddish. In the garden Asters the disk flowers give 
place to repeated series of ray flowers^ and assume the 
appearance of the well-known China Asters. They 
bloom till very late ; long after the other flowers have 
yielded to the touch of frost gay beds of Asters can 
be seen looking as fresh and joyous as though it were 
yet summer. 



AN AUTUMN GARLAND. 143 

8. Among the glories of the garden in these late 
days are the Dahlias. Stately, stiff, ceremonious 
duennas, they are suggestive of the old days of ruffs 
and starched petticoats, when court beauties in jeweled 
stomachers and fardingales assembled round the 
<■' Virgin Queen," starched and bestomached more than 
any of them. In those days, however, the Dahlia did 
not frequent royal courts, unless, indeed, it gazed 
wonderfully on Aztec or Peruvian magnificence in the 
nut-brown hands of some dusky maid of Montezuma's 
court or the Inca's Palace of the Sun. For this plant 
is of tropic origin, and was first introduced into Eu- 
rope by Alexander von Humboldt in 1790. It has 
since been successfully cultivated by many gardeners 
on both sides of the sea. The flowers of all the spe- 
cies are distinguished by the absence of a pappus and 
by a double involucre, the outer being man;^-leaved, 
and the inner consisting of one leaf divided into eight 
segments. Their showy bloom lasts through all Oc- 
tober, if protected from hard frosts. 

9. Then there are the delicate yellow, late-appear- 
ing blossoms of the Madeira vine, which with its 
shining, graceful leaves are very attractive. The last 
of the Clematis, a great bough, all fleecy white, con- 
trasts finely with the rest, and is no little addition to 
the floral wreath. How I wish I could keep it for- 
ever, this garland of ours ; but no, it must fade and 
perish just like the beautiful autumn itself. It is no 
fairy princess to go to sleep and remain the same for 
a hundred years. I pick my last aster with sorrow- 
ful regret, knowing that against all this bed of varie- 



144 THE PLANT WORLJD. 

gated color will soon only be a dull, blank whiteness. 
All too soon mj autumn bouquet will be a thing of 
the past. 

F. M. Colby, " The Ladies' Floral Cabinet.'' 



THE GIAJSTT TKEES OF CALIFOEOTA. 

1. These trees are about thirty miles from the 
Yosemite Yallej and two hundred and thirty from 
San Francisco. 

2. Six hundred of these mammoths are scattered 
among the noble pines of twelve hundred and eighty 
acres. Many of the pines are two hundred feet high. 
Elsewhere they would be kings of the forest; but 
among these hoary giants they become puny, insig- 
nificant children. Pygmies on Alps may be pygmies 
still, but pyramids are not always pyramids in vales. 

3. The Big Trees have been considered redwoods 
— a, species of cedar abounding on this coast— but the 
botanists decide otherwise, and name them Sequoias. 
They are the oldest and most stupendous vegetable 
products existing upon the globe. Already twenty 
groves have been discovered in California. The 
Mariposa is the largest and finest, though the Calave- 
ras, fifty miles to the northward, is better known. 

4. Of the Mariposa Sequoias, two hundred are 
more than twelve feet in diameter, fifty more than 
sixteen feet, and six more than thirty feet. The 
largest, called the Prostrate Monarch, now lying upon 



THE GIANT TREES OF CALIFORNIA. I45 

the ground leafless and branchless, is believed to have 
fallen full j one hundred and fifty years ago ! Fire 
has consumed much of the trunk, but enough remains 
to show that with the bark on, it must have been 
forty feet in thickness. Figures give little idea of 
such dimensions. Measure up forty feet on a house 
wall, then four hundred feet along the ground, and 
try to picture the height and diameter of the Pros- 
trate Monarch as it stood a thousand years ago ! 

6. The tops of the largest trees ^fO broken off, 
leaving their average height about two hundred and 
fifty feet, though some range between three and four 
hundred feet. We saw one with a branch — not a 
fork, but an honest, lateral branch — six feet in diame- 
ter, growing from the stem eighty feet above the 
ground. 

6. Into a cavity burned in the side of another 
standing tree fifteen of us rode together. Without 
crowding, we all sat upon our horses in that black, 
novel chamber, though it occupied less than half the 
thickness of the immense trunk. 

7. Through a stem lying upon the ground tire 
has bored like an auger. Our entire cavalcade, in- 
cluding all the tall men, all the fat men, and all the 
ample skirts, rode through it from end to end, like a 
railway train through a tunnel. One enormous living 
trunk parts near the ground into two tall, systematic, 
perfect stems. 

8. The largest standing tree is the Grizzly Giant. 
Its bark is nearly two feet thick. If it were cut off 
smoothly, fifty horses could easily stand or sixteen 

11 



146 THE PLANT WORLD. 

couples dance upon the stump. If the trunk were 
hollowed to a shell, it would hold more freight than a 
man-of-war or a first-class steamer two hundred and 
fifty feet long. 

9. One of the Calaveras Sequoias was cut down by 
boring with augers and sawing the spaces between. 
The work employed "^ve men for twenty-five days. 
When fully cut off the tree stubbornly continued to 
stand, only yielding at last to a mammoth wedge 
and a powerful battering-ram. . . . There seems to 
be no convincing or even plausible theory of their 
origin — I should rather say of their prjeservation, for 
they are children of a long-ago climatic era. The 
age of giants lingers on the entire Pacific coast. . . . 
It was once thought incredible that the yew should 
live a thousand years. But these monster Sequoias 
are the world's patriarchs. 

10. Some botanists date their birth far back of 
earliest human history ; none estimate their age at less 
tlian eighteen hundred years. Perchance their youth 
saw the awkward thundering mastodon canter oyer 
the hills, and the hundred-feet-long reptile of many 
legs, and mouth hke a volcano, crawl sluggishly 
through torrid swamps. They were living when the 
father of poets, old, blind, and vagabond, sang his 
immortal song ; when the sage of Athens, " that most 
Christian heathen," calmly drank the hemlock ; when 
the carpenter of Judea, from whom the whole world 
now computes its time, was a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief, despised and rejected of men. 

11. An act of Congress has segregated Yosemite 




Hie " Grizzly Giant.'''' 



MOUNTAIN VEGETATION. 147 

Yallej and the Mariposa groves of Big Trees from the 
general pubHc domain, setting them apart as pleasure 
grounds for the people of the United States and their 
heirs and assigns forever. 

A. D. Richardson, " The Sublime in Nature." 



MOUNTAm YEGETATIOK 

1. Yegetation changes with the latitude — that is 
to say, according to the distance of the equator. As 
we advance from the equator toward the poles we 
meet in succession with the equatorial, tropical, tem- 
perate, and polar zones — vegetation gradually losing 
its power, a fact which is proved most satisfactorily 
by the decreasing number of species and by their 
dwarfed appearance until vegetation altogether ceases 
in the region where snow reigns eternal. When heat 
disappears, organic life is extinguished, and vegetable 
organization is subject to the same laws and experi- 
ences loss of power and vigor proportioned to the 
decrease of heat. 

2. But a natural reflection presents itself immedi- 
ately as a corollary upon these remarks. 

3. When we ascend a mountain, or, in fact, when 
we ascend by any means whatever — in a balloon, for 
instance, as M. Glaisher's experiments seem to show 
— the temperature decreases by something like one 
degree for every hundred yards above the surface. 
It follows from these premises that every stage in the 



148 THE PLANT WORLD. 

ascent of a mountain should exhibit different forms of 
vegetation, eacli forming a zone or botanic region 
similar to those we have passed in tracing their geo- 
graphical latitudes. And this ^."^ so, in fact, as we 
shall find in the following remarks, which we borrow 
from the writings of Adrian de Jussieu on the vege- 
tation of the Alps and Prof. C. Martins on Mont 
Yentoux, in Provence : 

4. " Let us imagine a spectator at the foot of the 
Alps," says M. de Jussieu, " opposite to one o± those 
grand rocky masses crowned with eternal snow. As 
his eye ranges along the sides of the mountain he ob- 
serves that the vegetation which immediately sur- 
rounds him, and which is that which characterizes 
centra] and northern France, disappears at a certain 
height, giving place to another, which in turn disap- 
pears at a higher range. Beyond a certain distance 
the eye can only seize the masses indicated by large 
trees, the humbler plants being concealed behind 
them, so that they look like a series of bands super- 
posed one over the other on the slopes of the moun- 
tain. At first these belts are composed of deciduous- 
leaved plants, which drop early and are readily 
distinguithable by their more tender verdure; then 
conifers of deeper green, which in the mass appear 
nearly black. Another belt succeeds of an undecided 
green, interrupted here and there by clumps of an- 
other color, which goes stragghng up to the sinuous 
line where the snow commences. This is owing to 
the circumstance that the trees whose branches are 
too closely intermingled have died out, making room 



MOUNTAIN VEGETATION. 149 

for slirubs or herbaceous plants m5re dwarfed in 
their gro^vth and more on a level with the soil. 

5. " If the spectator approaches the mountain and 
-scales it, he will find ^ther plants very different from 
the masses he looivcd at in the distance, which we 
call Alpine plants — such as the aconites, astrantia, 
certain species of artemisias, of groundsel, prenanthes, 
achilleas, saxifrages, and potentillas. After having 
sldi-ted the walnut-trees and traversed the woods 
formed of chestnut-trees these wiU be observed to 
cease, and forests of oak, beeches, and birches take 
their place. Of these, the oaks disappear first, at the 
height of about twenty-five hundred feet above the 
level of the sea, the beeches about three thousand 
feet. Beyond this the trees consist entirely of ever- 
greens, as firs, larches, and the common pines, which 
stop also at certain successive stages, about forty-five 
hundred feet. The birch ascends a httle higher, but 
disappears also at about six thousand feet of elevation. 
A conifer {Pinus cemhrci) continues for another hun- 
dred yards. Beyond this limit the trees become 
dwarfed in size ; for example, a species of alder 
(Alniis mridis) becomes a low shrub. ISTear to this 
the botanist will find himself surrounded by shrubs 
very characteristic of the Alps, sometimes called the 
Alpine rose, namely, the rhododendron, which ceases 
in its turn only a httle higher, giving place to plants 
much more lowly, which scarcely rise above the soil. 
These are specially known as Alpine plants. They 
belong to families which he observed at his point of 
departure — a few crucifers, caryophyllum, Rosacece^ 



150 THE PLANT WORLD. 

LeguminosGB, Gompositoe, Cypriaceoe, GraminecB^ but of 
different species. These also are numerous, and with 
them representatives of other families which rarely 
show themselves in the plains, such as saxifrages and 
gentians. Annuals cease almost entirely, as might be 
foreseen, since an unfavorable season, in which the 
ripening of their seeds was checked, would be suffi- 
cient to destroy their race." 

6. The roots of the perennial or woody plants 
bury themselves under the soil, where a higher tem- 
perature is preserved. They submit to the influence 
of the atmosphere, and develop when it is milder and 
sufficiently warm. But this can only be done during 
a short season, and on some places only once in many 
years. It follows that the stems are short and scarcely 
rise out of the soil, while those that are frutescent 
usually hug the ground, sometimes creeping, some- 
times rising short, hardy, intertwining stems, forming 
thick, stunted bushes, as would result in ordinary cases 
from pruning shrubs very near the ground. The 
general appearance proper to the plant is thus effaced 
in some respects and replaced by the physiognomy 
belonging to Alpine vegetation. These plants are 
generally of the arborescent kind, like the willows, 
whose roots creep along the ground. The more ele- 
vated they are, the more scattered and impoverished 
is the vegetation, until, at the foot of the rocks, it only 
appears in the form of lichens, whose crust differs from 
the monotonous tint of their own surface. Wlien the 
limit of eternal snow is reached, organized life can no 
longer exist. 



MOUNTAIN VEGETATION. 151 

7. Mont Yentoux, in Provence, presents us with 
an interesting application of the same facts. This 
mountain rises abruptly from a plain, the temperature 
of which may be compared with that of Sienna, 
Brescia, or Yenice, while the summit of the mountain 
approaches the climate of Sweden, on the borders of 
Lapland. To ascend its sides and reach the summit 
is as if we had actually traversed nineteen degrees of 
latitude, or from 44° to 63°. Prof. Charles Martins 
has published an interesting account of the vegetation 
of this mountain. " Mont Yentoux," says the learned 
professor of , Montpeliier, " presents a succession of 
well-defined botanical regions, each characterized by 
the presence of plants which are wanting on the 
others. These regions are six in number upon the 
southern slopes and five on its northern side. 

8. " Ascending the southern slope, its base, in re- 
spect to its vegetation, is like that of the valley of the 
Rhone. All the plants of the plains are found in the 
region at the foot of the mountain, and they are well 
characterized by two trees — the Aleppo pine and the 
olive. Both belong to the basin of the Mediterra- 
nean, round which they form a girdle, only inter- 
rupted by the Delta of the Mle. The Aleppo pine 
is found upon all the hills which lie at the southern 
foot of Mont Yentoux, but ceases at the height of 
fourteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. 
The olive ascends a little higher, but ceases at six- 
teen hundred feet. Under these trees we meet with 
all the species which characterize the vegetation of 
Provence — the Kermes oak, the rosemary, the Span- 



152 THE PLANT WORLD. 

ish broom, and Dorycinium suffraticasm. A narrow 
zone, scarcely exceeding a hundred and eighty feet, 
succeeds to this, which is characterized by the ever- 
green oak. Among the undershrubs we find the 
European leadwort, the juniper, the great JEujphor- 
hia characias, and the Psoralea, of bituminous odor. 

9. " A region altogether destitute of arborescent 
vegetation follows. The soil is here naked, stony, and 
generally uncultivated; nevertheless, here and there 
fields of chick peas, oats, and barley appear, the last 
of which disappears at thirty -five hundred feet above 
the Mediterranean ; but a shrub — the box-tree — 
two undershrubs — thyme and lavender — another 
herbaceous Ldbiatm {Nejpeta graveolens\ and the swal- 
low-wort ( Vincetoxicum officinale) predominate as to 
size and number. It is at this point that the first in- 
dications of an arborescent vegetation appear, but it 
is necessary to ascend to thirty-eight hundred feet 
before reaching the new vegetation. It is com- 
posed of beeches ; at first sparse and undersized, they 
get larger three hundred feet higher, especially in the 
deep ravines and valleys, where they are sheltered 
from the wind. This region extends as high as fifty- 
five hundred feet. At this height the depressions 
are slight, valleys and ravines almost cease, and the 
trees are exposed to the depressing action of the 
winds. The plants which clothe the soil are now 
humble bushes, with short, hard, and crowded 
branches. One of these bushes, like a large ball or 
mattress extended on the earth, is often as old as the 
great beeches which elevate their proud heads to the 



MOUNTAIN VEGETATION. 153 

heavens in the valleys below. [N'umerons species oc- 
cupy the region of beeches, many of them belonging 
to the subalpine zone of the mountains of central 
Europe, never descending into the plains, unless 
transplanted. Such are the buckthorn, the goose- 
berry, the wallflower, the mountain sorrel, and the 
mountain anthyllis. 

10. " At the height of ' fifty-six hundred feet 
the cold is intense, the summer brief, and the 
wind so violent that the beech can no longer exist. 
As upon Mont Yentoux, so it is on the Alps and 
Pyrenees — on all, a tree of the family of Conifers is 
the last representative of arborescent vegetation. It 
is a humble species of pine, called the mountain pine 
{Pinus uncinata\ because the scales of its cone are 
curved into a sort of claw. These pines are found 
many feet in height in sheltered places, but be- 
come mere bushy shrubs when exposed to the 
sweep of the winds. They ascend as high as six 
thousand feet, the extreme limit of arborescent vege- 
tation. The herbaceous plants of this region are 
the same as in the region of beeches, which nearly 
all attain the limit of the pines. In addition to 
the common juniper, resting on the soil, as it al- 
ways does on high mountains, where the weight of 
the snow crushes it all the winter, we find the 
mountain germander ( Veronica montana) and the 
tafted saxifrage {S. coespitosa\ which is found on the 
loftiest ridges of the Alps. 

11. "Its flora thus teaches us, in the absence of 
the barometer, that we have reached the Alpine re- 



154 THE PLANT WORLD. 

gion of Mont Yentonx, and that the region of arbo- 
rescent vegetation has disappeared. But here the bot- 
anist will be delighted to find the flora of Lapland or 
Iceland and of Spitzbergen also. In the Alps this re- 
gion extends to the line of perpetual snow, the home 
of eternal winter. But as Mont Yentoux is only six 
thousand three or four hundred feet high, the sum- 
mit only extends to the lower zone of the Alpine re- 
gions in the Alps and Pyrenees. At this point all 
trees have disappeared, but a crowd of small plants 
expand their corollas on the stony surface. Among 
them the orange-flowering poppy, the violet of Mont 
Cenis, the blue-flowered astragalus, and, quite at the 
summit, the meadow grass of the Alps, Gerard's Eu- 
jphorhia^ and the common nettle, which is generally 
found wherever man fixes his dwelling. 

12. "A chapel has been built on the summit of 
the mountain since the ascent of Petrarch. But it is 
not on the south terminal summit that the botanist 
will seek for the Alpine plants characteristic of the 
loftier regions. It is on the northern declivities, on 
the rocks exposed to the glacial north winds, nearly 
deprived of the sun during long months and covered 
with snow from June. These I have surveyed as I 
would survey an old friend. The purple saxifrage 
(S. oj)positifolia) was the first plant I recognized ; 
I had gathered it on the summit of the Peculet, 
the loftiest ridge of the Jura, and upon all the 
summits of the Alps which reached or passed the 
limits of perpetual snow. When I put foot for 
the first time on the icy shores of Spitzbergen the 



INDIAN SUMMER. 155 

purple saxifrage was among the first plants which 
attracted my attention ; for here are found, on 
the shore of the sea, the cold summers and the 
melting snow of the summits which crown the 
Alps and the Pyrenees. Upon Mont Yentoux other 
saxifrages, equally Alpine, surround it. The blue 
bell-shaped flowers of Camjpanula Allioni raised their 
heads from a heap of stones and dwarf plants which 
covered all these heights ; the round-headed phy- 
teuma, the hairy androsacea, the ononis of Mont 
Cenis, and three species of arenaria clung to the 
rocks or peeped through the stones." 

Louis Figuier, " The Vegetable World." 



Il^DIAJS" SUMMEK. 

1. When leaves grow sear all thing take somber hue ; 
The wild winds waltz no more the woodside 

through, 
And all the faded grass is wet with dew. 

2. A gauzy nebula films the pensive sky, 
The golden bee supinely buzzes by, 

In silent flocks the bluebirds southward fly. 

3. The forest's cheeks are crimsoned o'er with sli^me, 
The cynic frost enlaces every lane, 

The ground with scarlet blushes is aflame 1 



156 THE PLANT WORLD. 

4. Tlie one we love grows lustrous-eyed and sad, 
With sympathy too thoughtful to be glad, 
"While all the colors round are running mad. 

5. The sunbeams kiss askant the somber hill, 
The naked woodbine climbs the window-sill, 
The breaths that noon exhales are faint and chill. 

6. The ripened nuts drop downw^ard day by day. 
Sounding the hollow tocsin of decay, 

And bandit squirrels smuggle them away. 

7. Yague sighs and scents pervade the atmosphere. 
Sounds of invisble stirrings hum the ear, 

The morning's lash reveals a frozen tear. 

8. The hermit mountains gird themselves with mail, 
Mocking the thrashers with an echo flail, 

The while the afternoons grow crisp and pale. 



9. Inconstant Summer to the tropics flees. 

And, as her rose-sails catch the amorous breeze, 
Lo ! bare, brown Autumn trembles to her knees ! 

10. The stealthy nights encroach upon the days. 
The earth with sudden whiteness is ablaze. 
And all her paths are lost in crystal maze ! 

11. Tread lightly where the dainty violets blew. 
Where the Spring winds their soft eyes open flew ; 
Safely they sleep the churlish Winter through. 



THE SLEEP OF PLANTS. . 157 

12. Though all life's portals are indiced with woe, 
And frozen pearls are all the world can show, 
Feel ! ]^ature's breath is warm beneath the snow. 

13. Look up, dear mourners ! Still the blue expanse, 
Serenely, tender, bends to catch thy glance ; 
"Within thy tears sibyllic sunbeams dance ! 

14. With blooms full-sapped again will smile the land : 
The fall is but the folding of His hand, 

Anon with fuller glories to expand. 

15. The dumb heart hid beneath the pulseless tree 
Will throb again ; and then the torpid bee 
Upon the ear will drone his drowsy glee. 

16. So shall the truant bluebirds backward fly. 
And all loved things that vanish or that die 
Return to us in some sweet by-and-by. 

Anonymous. 



THE SLEEP OF PLANTS. 

1. The deeper we search into the mysteries of 
vegetable life the closer relation do we find with ani- 
mal existence. Exhausted by the functional labor of 
the day, many plants, when the evening arrives, as- 
sume a particular attitude, which they preserve through 
the night ; this is their sleep. 



158 THE PLANT WORLD. 

2. This curious phenomenon, which a fortunate 
accident revealed to Linnseus, was carried by him to 
demonstration. He first observed it in a bird's-foot 
lotus growing in one of the greenhouses of the garden 
at Upsala. Having noticed it flowering in the morn- 
ing, what was his astonishmentj as he passed by the 
plant in the middle of the night, to find that he could 
not see its flowers ! At first the botanist thought that 
some unprincipled amateur had robbed him of them ; 
but, on looking more attentively at the plant, he found 
that it was against itself the charge of larceny would 
have to be preferred. In fact, the naturahst observed 
that each evening the leaves of this lotus assumed a 
particular position which hid the corollas ; it was their 
way of sleeping. 

3. Thinking that such a phenomenon would not 
be an isolated one, Linnaeus after this passed the 
nights in wandering about in his garden, with a torch 
in his hand to verify the results. In this way he 
noticed that a great number of plants assume a par- 
ticular attitude when they give themselves up to 
sleep. This is due to their need of repose, which, as 
in most animals, coincides with the want of light. 

4. In certain families of the vegetable kingdom 
the plants are even so transformed during their sleep 
that they are not recognizable. The aspect of a forest 
or a savanna is sometimes absolutely changed by it. 
Many bring their boughs nearer to the stem, and ap- 
ply their leaves one to the other, so as to be a mutual 
protection against the cold. Whoever has seen a 
sensitive-plant during the night, with its boughs 



THE SLEEP OF PLANTS. 159 

drooping, and, as it were, overpowered by fatigue, 
with its leaflets folded together like eyelids which 
close, will admit that at such times it rests and sleeps. 

5. The phenomenon we are speaking of is seen in 
a much more striking form in hotter countries. Hum- 
boldt, while traversing the banks of the Magdalena, 
observed that there plants awake much later than in 
less torrid countries, as if vegetation in these climates 
shared in the indolence which is observable in all the 
peoples scattered beneath the equator. 

6. Many flowers close every evening in order to 
give themselves up peacefully to repose. There are 
some, such as certain bindweeds, which are very lazy, 
falling asleep long before sunset, and only rousing up 
very late each morning, when the sun darts his rays 
upon them. 

7. In the evening if we view a meadow in which 
these impressible flowers abound, its mournful aspect 
renders it unrecognizable. In full midday, when it 
is enameled with all these open corollas, it seems a 
mass of verdure flUed with great yellow and blue eyes 
which gaze at us. But when twilight arrives all these 
seem to have closed their eyelids in order to slumber ; 
the living aspect of the meadow has vanished; all 
appears inanimate — its flowers are sleeping. 

8. Men have sought to attribute the phenomenon 
we are speaking of to the difference between the tem- 
perature of the day and the temperature of the night ; 
but when it was seen to take place in greenhouses, 
where the heat was equal night and day, they were 
obliged to seek for some other cause. 



160 THE PLANT WORLD. 

9. De Candolle showed hj some interesting experi- 
ments that within the empire of Flora sleep is to be 
attributed to the absence of light. By throwing a 
very bright light upon sensitive -plants during the 
night, and conversely, by placing them in profound 
darkness during the day, the learned botanist suc- 
ceeded in completely changing their habits. These 
plants closed up their leaflets and slept the whole 
day, deceived by the artificial gloom, and they re- 
mained awake the whole night when six lamps pro- 
jected upon them a brilliance equal to five sixths of 
that of daylight. 

10. It is principally among plants which inhabit 
intertropical countries that the phenomenon in ques- 
tion is seen. It is particularly noticeable in the fam- 
ily of the Zeguminosw, and most of all in. the sen- 
sitive-plants. Many of those in our fields show it 
plainly. 

11. If at the close of summer we examine a clover 
field about six o'clock in the evening, w^e are struck 
with the aspect which all the plants present at this 
moment — the first of their sleep. The two side leaf- 
lets of each leaf are laid close against one another, 
and the middle one covers them like a protecting 
roof ; the whole aspect of the crop has changed. 

F. A. PoucHET, " The Universe." 




THE BAOBAB. 161 



THE BAOBAB. 

1. The African baobab, or monkej-bread-tree 
{Adanso7iia digitata\ may justly be called the ele- 
phant of tlie vegetable world. JN^ jar the village of 
Gumer, in Fassokl, Russegger saw a baobab thirty 
feet in diameter and ninety-five in circumference ; 
the horizontally outstretched branches were so large 
that the negroes could comfortably sleep upon them. 
The Venetian traveler Cadamosto (1454) found, near 
the mouths of the Senegal, baobabs measuring 
more than a hundred feet in circumference. As 
these vegetable giants are generally hollow, like our 
ancient willows, they are frequently made use of as 
dwellings or stables, and Dr. Livingstone mentions 
one in which twenty or thirty men could lie down 
and sleep as in a hut. In the village of Grand 
Galarques, in Senegambia, the negroes have decorated 
the entrance into the cavit}^ of a monstrous baobab 
with rude sculptures cut into the living wood, and 
make use of the interior as a kind of assembly-room, 
where they meet to deliberate on the interests of 
their small community, " reminding one," says Hum- 
boldt, " of the celebrated plantain in Lycia, in whose 
hollow trunk the Roman consul, Lucinius Mutianus, 
once dined with a party of twenty-one." 

2. As the baobab begins to decay in the part 
where the trunk divides into the larger branches, and 
the process of destruction thence continues down- 
ward, the hollow space fills during the rainy season 

12 



162 THE PLANT WORLD. 

with water, wMcli keeps a long time, from its being 
protected against the rays of the sun. The baobab 
thus forms a vegetable cistern, whose water the 
neighboring viliagers sell to travelers. In Kordofan 
the Arabs climb upon the tree, fill the water in leath- 
ern buckets, and let it down from above; but the 
people in Congo more ingeniously bore a hole in the 
trunk, which they stop, after having tapped as much 
as they require. 

3. The height of the baobab does not correspond 
to its amazing bulk, as it seldom exceeds sixty feet. 
As it is of very rapid growth, it acquires a diameter 
of three or four feet and its full altitude in about 
thirty years, and then continues to grow in circum- 
ference. The larger beamlike branches, almost as 
thick at their extremity as at their origin, are abruptly 
rounded, and then send forth smaller branches, with 
large, light green, palmated leaves. The bark is 
smooth and grayish. The oval fruits, which are of 
the size of large cucumbers, and brownish-yellow 
when ripe, hang from long, twisted, spongy stalks, 
and contain a white farinaceous substance, of an 
agreeable acidulated taste, enveloping the dark-brown 
seeds. They are a favorite food of the monkeys, 
whence the tree has derived one of its names. 

4. From the depth of the incrustations formed on 
the marks which the Portuguese navigators of the 
fifteenth century used to cut in the large baobabs 
which they found growing on the African coast, and 
by comparing the relative dimensions of several 
trunks of a known age, Adanson concluded that a 



VALUABLE WOODS' OF BRAZIL. 163 

baobab of thirty feet in diameter must have hved at 
least 'B.YQ thousand years ; but a more careful investi- 
gation of the rapid growth of the spongy wood has 
reduced the age of the giant tree to more moderate 
limits, and proved that even in comparative youth it 
attains the hoary aspect of extreme senihty. 

5. The baobab, which belongs to the same family 
as the mallow or the hollyhock, and is, hke them, 
emollient and mucilaginous in all its parts, ranges 
over a wide extent of Africa, particularly in the parts 
where the summer rains fall in abundance, as in 
Senegambia, in Soudan, and in E^ubia. Dr. Living- 
stone admired its colossal proportions on the banks of 
the Zouga and the Zambesi. It forms a conspicuous 
feature in the landscape at Manaar in Ceylon, where 
it has most likely been introduced by early mariners, 
perhaps even by the Phoenicians, as the prodigious 
dimensions of the trees are altogether inconsistent 
with the popular conjecture of a Portuguese origin. 
G. Hartwig, " The Tropical World." 



YALUABLE WOODS OF BEAZIL. 

1. How to meet the growing demand for timber 
is a question of considerable interest and importance. 
It rises to the dignity of a national to23ic. While the 
population of the United States increases in a decade 
thirty -five per cent, the increase of the consumption 
of wood is sixty -three per cent. England imports 



164: THE PLANT WORLD. 

wood to the value of sixty million dollars, or three 
times as much as her home produce. The temperate 
zones supply most of the woods of construction, while 
nearly all the ornamental woods come from tropical 
countries. No hard timber is found in the United 
States west of the one hundredth meridian, and all the 
great forests of South America are cisandean. 

2. 'No spot on the globe contains so much vege- 
table matter as the valley of the Amazons. In it we 
may draw a circle a thousand miles in diameter, which 
will include an evergreen forest, broken only by the 
rivers and a few grassy campos. The densest portion 
of this forest is along the base of the Andes, where 
the moisture and temperature are combined in the 
right proportion, such as existed, doubtless, in the 
Carboniferous age. The flowers are on the top of this 
mass of verdure. On many of the trees not a single 
blossom is to be found at a less height than one hun- 
dred feet. The glory of the forest can be seen only 
by sailing in a balloon over the undulating, flowery 
surface above. There, too, in that green cloud are 
the insects and birds and monkeys. You are in " the 
empty nave of the cathedral, and the service is being 
celebrated aloft in the blazing roof." In place of 
mosses and lichens, the trunks and boughs are bearded 
with epiphytic orchids, ferns, tillandsias, cactuses, etc., 
frequently forming hanging gardens of great beauty. 
In ascending the river the traveler, even if an acute 
botanist, is rarely able to distinguish individual trees, 
save the palms and certain lofty, dome-shaped crowns, 
for the branches are so thoroughly interwoven and so 




VALUABLE WOODS OF BRAZIL. 165 

densely veiled mth twiners and epipiLjtes that one 
sees little more than a green wall. He might roam a 
hundred years in the Amazons' thicket, and at the 
end find it impossible to classify the myriad, crowded, 
competing shapes of vegetation. The roots even of 
the giants are not deep. The temperature of the in- 
terior of the forest is generally lower than that of the 
river bank. 

3. The Amazonian sylva is naturally divided into : 
1. The great or virgin forests, which clothe the terra 
Ji/rma beyond the reach of inundations and consti- 
tute the great mass of the vegetation. Here grow 
the fine timber-trees and the most lordly trunks, as 
the Brazil nut-trees. The palms are peculiar and 
few. 2. The low or white forests, rich and varied, 
growing on the vargem^ or occasionally flooded tracts. 
Palms, pas-mulatto, and wild cacao are characteristic 
forms. 3. The riparial forests on lowlands border- 
ing the rivers, and laid under water several months 
in the year. The soil is the most recent alluvium. 
Here thrive herbaceous plants, reeds, broad-leaved 
heliconias, and soft-wooded trees. Besides these are 
the second growth forests and the scrubby campos. 
The virgin forests are distinct " by the somber foli- 
age of the densely packed, lofty trees, out of which 
stand — hke the cupolas, spires, and turrets of a large 
city — dome-shaped or pyramidal or flat-topped crowns 
of still loftier trees, overtopping even the tallest 
palms." The riparial are marked by the varied tints 
of the foliage, by the greater abundance of palms and 
leaves, and by the humbler growth of the trees gen- 



166 THE PLANT WORLD. 

erallj, wMcli, beginning at the water's edge as low 
bushes, increase in height as they advance inland till 
they mingle with the sturdier primeval woods. The 
riparial forests, as we might suppose, have softer and 
more perishable timber and also inferior fruits. 

4. J^owhere in the world is there such an amount 
or such a variety of useful and ornamental woods as 
in the virgin forests which stand around the basin of 
the great river. Over a hundred different kinds of 
highly valuable woods have been cut from a piece 
of land less than half a mile square. Of these, many 
were dark-colored, veined woods, susceptible of a high 
polish — as beautiful as rosewood or ebony. But the 
development of this industry has not even begun. 
There are only two sawmills on the river between 
Para and the Andes — namely, at Manaos and Iqui- 
tos. When the natives want a plank, they cut down 
a tree and hew it with a hatchet. Several hundred 
kinds of choice woods, hard and heavy, finely tinted 
and close-grained, abound, with water-power on every 
tributary, and a highway by river and ocean to Europe 
and America, yet enough goes to rot every year to 
enrich an empire. It is a singular fact that dead tim- 
ber is rarely to be seen in the heart of the great 
forest. It seems to go to dust almost immediately 
after its fall, the process of destruction bemg acceler- 
ated by insects. The like rapid decay of fallen tim- 
ber was noticed by Tennent in Ceylon. 

5. There are three drawbacks to lumbering on the 
Amazons : first, the scarcity of labor ; second, the 
high export duty ; and, third, the fact that the trees 



GIANTS IN THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 167 

of any one kind, thongli abundant, are scattered. 
While we have our forests of oak, pine, and hemlock, 
in the tropics diversity is the law. Earely do we see 
half a dozen trees of the same species together. 

James Orton, " The Andes and the Amazons." 



GIANTS IN THE VEGETABLE WOKLD. 

1. The monarch of flowers, in respect to size, is 
that first discovered by Sir . Stamford Raffles, and 
named after him Rafflesia. It is a large, fleshy para- 
site, growing on the roots of other plants, without 
leaves, and consisting entirely of a single enormous 
flower, " of a very thick substance, the petals and 
nectary being but in a few places less than a quarter 
of an inch thick, and in some places three quarters 
of an inch. The substance of it was very succulent. 
When I first saw it a swarm of flies were hovering 
over the mouth of the nectary, and apparently laying 
their eggs in the substance of it. It had precisely the 
smell of tainted beef. It measured a full yard across ; 
the petals, which were subrotund, being twelve inches 
from the base to the apex, and it being about a foot 
from the insertion of the one petal to the opposite 
one. The nectary, in the opinion of all of us, would 
hold twelve pints, and the weight of this prodigy we 
calculated to be fifteen pounds." 

2. The flower was flrst discovered in 1818, on the 
Manna River, in Sumatra, where it is said to be 



168 THE PLANT WORLD. 

known by the name of the " Devil's Siri box " ! Dr. 
Arnold says that when he first saw it in the jungle it 
made a powerful impression on him. " To tell the 
truth, had I been alone, and had there been no wit- 
nesses, I should, I think, have been fearful of men- 
tioning the dimensions of this flower, so much does it 
exceed every flower I have ever seen or heard of." 
Another species has been found in Java, but not quite 
of such an enormous size. 

3. Second in size are the flowers of one of the birth- 
worts, cHmbing aristolochias of tropical forests. Hum- 
boldt gave the first intimation of the existence of 
these giants in these words : " On the shady banks of 
the Magdalena River, in South America, grows a 
climbing aristolochia, whose blossoms, measuring four 
feet in circumference, the Indian children sportively 
draw on their heads as caps." This species {Aristo- 
lochia grandiflora)^ or what is believed to be the 
same species, is called " pelican flower " in the West 
Indies, from the resemblance of its young and un- 
opened flower to the head of a pelican at rest. 
Miers states that he had often seen it in Brazil, 
where he was led to compare the large flaccid blos- 
soms on the bushes with colored pocket-handkerchiefs 
laid out to dry. Lunan remarks that the odor is so 
abominably fetid that it is detested and shunned 
by most animals ; and when hogs venture, through 
necessity, to eat of it, it destroys them. Tussac, not- 
ing the same plant in the Antilles, says that a whole 
herd of swine, having been driven into the woods 
where this plant was common, had entirely perished 




m 









A 


B. .M:m^M 


IS 






**% 


1 






i 


> '-^^ %^^^B 



!Z7ie Giant Cactus. 



GIAXTS IN THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 169 

from eating the roots and young stems. Another 
species wliich has now flowered two or three times in 
this country {Aristolochia goldieand)^ comes from Old 
Calabar River and Sierra Leone. The flowers reach 
to twenty-six inches in length and eleven inches in 
diameter at the mouth when grown here. Like the 
other, it has a strong and powerful odor as of putrid 
meat. 

4. The flowers of the night -blooming cereus {Ce- 
reus grandiflorus) are very different in character and 
inferior in size ; they have, however, the merit of pos- 
sessing a very grateful fragrance. It is alluded to 
here as one of the largest of blossoms, attaining, it is 
said, when fully expanded, a diameter of a foot, but 
as this measurement is taken from tip to tip of the 
petals it does not seem so large as a cup-shaped flower 
would be. 

5. Among Hlies, there are two or three magnifi- 
cent species which deserve remembrance. Such, for 
example, is Lilium giganteumi^ of which a dried stem 
is preserved in one of the museums at Kew. Let the 
imagination strive to picture a gorgeous white lily, 
with a flower stem eleven and a half inches in circum- 
ference at the base and rising to a height of thirteen 
feet, bearing blossoms as large as tumbler glasses. It 
might be said literally that " Solomon in all liis glory 
was not arrayed like one of these." 

6. If one were asked to determine the largest 
fruit ]iitherto known, it is probable that the answer 
must be some species of gourd or "pumpkin," tlie 
dried external portion of one such specimen being 



170 THE PLANT WORLD. 

suspended in one of the museums of the Eoyal Gar- 
dens, Kew, with a diameter of about two feet. This 
far exceeds the largest " double cocoanut " {Lodoicea 
sechellarum) of which we have any experience. As 
far as we know, the full dimensions of the largest 
gourds have not been recorded, since thej may attain, 
in their native and warmer climes, a much greater 
diameter than in cultivation. 

Y. If individual seeds are tbe subject of inquiry, 
then we are assured that the largest seeds of which 
we have hitherto any experience are the beans of a 
mora-tree (or, as it is now caj^ed, Dimorphandra 
oleifera) from Panama. These seeds are as much as 
six inches long, five inches broad, and four inches 
thick. If edible, such beans would not be requisite 
in any great numbers for an ordinary meal. 

8. Justification might also be found for an allusion 
to such large starchy roots as the elephant's foot, and 
yams of various species, in which great bulk is com- 
bined with farinaceous qualities, which render them 
available, after the manner of gigantic potatoes, as 
articles of animal food. 

9. Those truly elegant plants, the ferns, as popu- 
lar as any of the members of the vegetable kingdom, 
have also their giants in the tree ferns of tropical 
climates. The "silver king" {Cyathea dealbata) has 
leaves, or fronds, from ^yq to seven feet in length ; 
and Diefienbach found it growing in ]^ew Zealand 
with trunks upward of forty -two feet in height. An- 
other, which might be called the " monarch " {Dick- 
sonia antarcUca), has fronds from six to twelve feet 



GIANTS IN THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 171 

in length or more. One plant, cultivated in this 
country, and hence probably inferior in size to those 
growing in its native home, is said to have produced 
fronds eleven feet in length and three feet two inches 
in width. This plant had altogether fifty fronds, 
which covered an area of eighteen and a half feet. 
In Tasmania this fern forms the great feature in the 
Fern Yalley. Humboldt considers it singular that no 
mention is made of arborescent ferns in the classic 
authors of antiquity, the first distinct reference being 
by Ovie^o, in the early part of the sixteenth century. 
However graceful an(^ elegant some of the palms may 
be in their foliage and the grandeur of their crested 
forms, these can not be compared for beauty with the 
deeply cut and infinitely diversified and subdivided 
fronds of the larger ferns. All that the palms may 
claim for excess in height or bulk of trunk over the 
tree ferns is amply compensated in the latter by the 
beauty and grace of their crown of feathery fronds. 

10. Sea-weeds are the most gigantic of cryptogamic 
plants, and of these the most noteworthy is the large 
Macrocystis of the antarctic seas {Macrocystes pyrife- 
ra). D'Wville says that it grows in eight, ten, and 
even fifteen fathoms of water, from which depth it 
ascends obliquely and floats along the surface nearly 
as far ; this gives a length of two hundred feet. Dr. 
Hooker (now Sir Joseph) says: "In the Falkland 
Islands, Cape Horn, and Kerguelen's Land, where all 
the harbors are so belted with its masses that a boat 
can hardly be forced through, it generally rises from 
eight to twelve fathom water, and the fronds extend 



172 THE PLANT WORLD. 

upward of one hundred feet upon the surface. We 
seldom, however, had opportunities of measurmg the 
largest specimens, though washed up enth'e on the 
shore, for on the outer coasts of the Falkland Islands, 
where the beach is lined for miles with entangled 
cables of Macrocystis much thicker than the human 
body, and t^vined of innumerable strands of stems 
coiled together by the rolling action of the surf, no 
one succeeded in unraveling from the mass any one 
piece upward of seventy or eighty feet long ; as well 
might we attempt to ascertain the length of hemp 
fiber by unlaying a cable. In Kerguelen's Land the 
length of some pieces which grew in the middle of 
Christmas Harbor was estimated at more than three 
hundred feet." He afterward alludes to what he con- 
sidered the largest specimen seen in what is behoved 
to be forty -fathom water and streaming along the 
surface to a probable total length of about seven hun- 
dred feet. The report that this sea- weed sometimes 
attains a length of fifteen hundred feet is probably 
exaggerated, although it may be true that " it grows 
up from a depth of forty-five fathoms to the sur- 
face at a very oblique angle, and even when of no 
great breadth makes excellent natural floating break- 
waters." 

11. ISTone of the remaining Cryptogamia attain to 
any extraordinary size. JS^either floating mosses nor 
dendiitic forms exceed two or three feet ; and lichens 
only extend to about the same dimensions in the most 
exaggerated examples. Fungi have not yet produced 
a Titanic species, for the largest agaric yet known is 



THE FEAST OF ROSES. 173 

inferior in expanse to a lady's parasol, and a great 
pnff-ball (Lycojperdon giganteicm) has not yet attained 
the dimensions of a somnolent sheep. Among the 
lower Cryjptogamia we have many examples of the 
infinitely little but not of the infinitely great. 

M. C. Cooke, " Freaks and Marvels of Plant Life." 



THE FEAST OF EOSES. 

1. Who has not heard of the Yale of Cashmere, 

With its roses, the brightest that earth ever 
gave, 
Its temples and grottoes, and fountains as clear 
As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their 
wave ? 

2. But never yet, by night or day. 
In dew of spring or summer's ray. 
Did the sweet valley shine so gay 
As now it shines — all love and light, 
Yisions by day and feasts by night ! 
A happier smile illumes each brow. 

With quicker spread each heart uncloses 
And all is ecstasy — for now 

The valley holds its Feast of Roses. 
That joyous time, when pleasures pour 
Profusely round, and in their shower 



171 THE PLANT WORLD. 

Hearts open, like the season's rose — 
The fLow'ret of a hundred leaves, 

Expanding while the dew-fall flows. 
And every leaf its balm receives ! 

3. A thousand restless torches played 
Through every grove and island shade ; 
A thousand sparkling lamps were set 
On every dome and minaret ; 

And fields and pathways, far and near, 
"Were lighted by a blaze so clear," 
That you could see, in wandering round, 
The smallest rose-leaf on the ground. 

4. And all exclaimed, to all they met, 
-That never did the summer bring 

So gay a Feast of Roses yet — 
The moon had never shed a light 

So clear as that which blessed them there 
The roses ne'er shone half so bright, 
. 'Nor they themselves looked half so fair. 
And what a wilderness of flowers ! 
It seemed as though from all the bowers 
And fairest fields of all the year. 
The mingled spoil were scattered here. 
The lake, too, like a garden breathes, 

With the rich buds that o'er it lie — 
As if a shower of fairy wreaths 

Had fallen upon it from the sky ! 
And then the sounds of joy — ^the beat 
Of tabors and of dancing feet ; 



THE CHOCOLATE-PLANT. 175 

The merry laugliter echoing 
From gardens, where the silken swing 
Wafts some dehghted girl above 
The top leaves of the orange grove ; 
Or, from those infant groups at play 
Among the tents that line the way, 
Flinging, unawed by slave or mother, 
Handf uls of roses at each other ! 

Moore. 



THE CHOCOLATE-PLAINT. 

1. At the discovery of America the natives of the 
narrower portion of the continent bordering on the 
Caribbean Sea were found in possession of two luxu- 
ries which have been everywhere recognized as worthy 
of extensive cultivation — namely, tobacco and choco- 
late. The former of these has made its way into 
climates totally unlike that of its early home; the 
other of these plants, since it can not bear the low 
temperature occasionally experienced in our subtrop- 
ics, is more restricted in its range. The chocolate- 
plant is confined to the warmer regions of the globe, 
where it finds the congenial climatic conditions which 
it enjoyed and still enjoys in its earliest home in 
America. 

2. The first references to the chocolate-plant and 
its products are found in the accounts of the explorers 



176 THE PLANT WORLD. 

and conquerors wlio followed Columbus. These first 
descriptions of this singular tree, of its fruits and 
seeds, of its uses and the methods of cultivation, are 
remarkably accurate in all essential particulars. Bj 
the natives of tropical America the seeds of the choco- 
late-plant were first roasted and then rudely ground. 
For this purpose they employed the fliat or curved 
surface of the sort of stone used by them to* grind 
their maize or Indian corn. The roller was merely a 
short, thick stone of a cylindrical shape, which could 
be used with one or both hands, somewhat after the 
manner of the common rolling-pin everywhere used 
in kitchens. By this simple appliance the crushed 
seeds were mixed with various ingredients, among 
which may be mentioned spices of different kinds. 
A modification of this was later used in Spain. The 
drinks made from this coarse chocolate were frequent- 
ly very complex, but the chocolate itself was the chief 
constituent. It was the custom to beat the mixture 
into a froth or foam by means of stirrers of mallet- 
like forms ; in fact, it is said by some writers that the 
very name chocolate is derived from a native word 
indicating the noise made by the stirring of the 
beverage. 

3. After its introduction into Europe from Amer- 
ica, chocolate was used at first only as a luxury, but 
it has steadily advanced in popular esteem until it is 
now recognized as one of the necessaries of life. 

4. It would be interesting to speculate as to the 
accidents which led to the original use of such bever- 
ages as coffee, tea, and chocolate. The earliest em- 



THE CHOCOLATE-PLANT. 177 

ployment of tlie two former is veiled in as deep a 
mystery as that which surrounds the chocolate-plant. 
All were used at the outset by what we have been 
accustomed to call the uncultivated races of mankind, 
but we can not surmise what first attracted their at- 
tention to these plants. One can only say that by the 
natives of lands where the plants grow naturally they 
have all been used from time immemorial, and that 
all three are welcome gifts from a rude state of civili- 
zation to the highest which exists to-day. By the 
savages and the Aztecs of America, by the roving 
tribes of Arabia, and by the dwellers in the farther 
East, the virtues of those three plants were recog- 
nized long before any one of them was introduced 
into Europe. 

5. There is reason to beheve that long before the 
discovery of America tea and coffee had been vague- 
ly known to travelers in the Orient as curiosities, 
much as we do to-day regard the kola-nut and mate, 
but neither tea nor coffee was then employed as a 
beverage anywhere in western Europe. In fact, all 
trustworthy evidence in the case leads us to a surpris- 
ing conclusion — namely, that chocolate was the first 
of these beverages to attract the attention of Euro- 
peans. This beverage rapidly made its way through- 
out Europe, beginning from Spain and Portugal, 
whither its discoverers had brought it. The other 
beverages, tea and coffee, soon followed, and after a 
short time became associated together in popular re- 
gard. 

6. The chocolate-plant is known to botanists as 

13 



178 THE PLANT WORLD. 

Theobroma cacao. The first or generic word in this 
name means "food of the gods."_ The genus con- 
tains six species, only one of which is generally cul- 
tivated. It is probable, however, that some of the 
seeds which find their way into commerce are yielded 
by other and wild species. It is, moreover, more 
than likely that among the numerous varieties of 
Theobroma cacao now cultivated there may be some 
hybrids between the different forms. The plant be- 
longs to the SterculiacecB^ a natural order containing 
forty-one genera and ^yq hundred and twenty species. 

Y. The pod is irregular and angular, much like 
some forms of cucumbers, but more pointed at the 
lower extremity and more distinctly grooved. It 
measures in length nine inches to a foot or even 
more, and about half as much in diameter. The 
color, when young, is green, becoming later dark yel- 
low or yellowish brown. The rind is thick and tough. 
The pod is filled with closely packed "beans," or 
seeds, imbedded in a mass of cellular tissue, some- 
times of pleasant subacid taste. The seeds are about 
as large as ordinary almonds, whitish when fresh, and 
of a disagreeable, bitter taste. When dried they be- 
come brown. The fruits are about four months in 
ripening, but they appear and mature the whole year 
through. In point of fact, however, there are chief 
harvests, usually in early spring, but this is different 
for different countries. 

8. The seeds of the chocolate-plant are brought 
into the market in their crude state, as almond-shaped 
" bp' ns," which differ in color and somewhat in tex- 



THE CHOCOLATE-PLANT. I79 

ture. Upon the color of shell and kernel, the relative 
brittleness, the flavor, and the odor, depend the mar- 
ket value of seeds. The dried seeds have a papery, 
brittle shell, which is very smooth on the inside, but 
on the outside exhibits, under the microscope, a few 
short hairs and round excrescences. But these are 
mostly lost by the rough handling and by the attri- 
tion of the seeds with one another during transporta- 
tion. The kernel consists of two large cotyledons or 
seed-leaves, reddish gray or reddish brown, with a 
shining, oily surface, the whole crushing rather easily 
into a loose mass of fragments. The kernel, when 
dry, has a minute, tough, almost stony radicle which 
separates easily from the cotyledons. Microscopic 
examination shows that the cells of the seed-leaves 
contain albumin, oily matters — sometimes in a crys- 
talline condition — crystals of an entirely different 
shape, starch, coloring substances in special recepta- 
cles known as pigment cells, and ducts with spiral 
markings. The starch grains do not have any very 
characteristic form or markings ; they are generally 
spherical and simple. The only peculiarity worth 
mentioning is the relative slowness with which they 
are acted on by hot water and by iodine. The color- 
ing substances are mainly of a carmine or violet color, 
and are distinguished by the change of shade when an 
alkali is added, becoming thereby darker. These are 
the only structural elements which a pure powder or 
paste of chocolate should show under the microscope. 
Any other substances must be recognized as accidental 
or intentional additions. ^i^c 



180 THE PLANT WORLD. 

9. All seeds of whatever kind contain, as a part 
of their substance, the matter of which cell-walls are 
made — namely, cellulose. The percentage differs in 
different seeds, in those of the chocolate-plant being 
about three in the hundred. Cellulose has the same 
chemical composition as starch, but its physical prop- 
erties are not the same as those of starch, among 
which" may be mentioned its entire insolubihty in 
boiling water. Starch forms, on an average, eight 
to ten per cent of chocolate-seeds. It consists of 
miunte spherical grains, not distinguishable from 
that found in many other kinds of seeds. Traces 
of gum and other allied bodies are also present in 
the seeds. 

10. Albuminoids, or substances resembling in a 
general way the albumin of egg, occur in chocolate- 
seeds as they do in other seeds, and in a somewhat 
higher amount than in certain other cases in which 
the seeds are used as food. The percentage ranges 
from about fifteen to twenty, depending on the variety. 
These albuminoids are compounds of nitrogen and 
are extremely nutritious. In the seeds they occur in 
a readily assimilable form, fit for digestion. 

Anonymous, " The School Journal." 



THE CINNAMON GARDENS OF CEYLON. 181 



THE CINE^AMOE" GAEDEI^S OF CEYLOJ^. 

1, Although the beautiful laurel whose bark fur- 
nishes the most exquisite of all the spices of the East 
is indigenous to the forests of Cejlon, yet, as no author 
previous to the fourteenth century mentions its aro- 
matic rind among the productions of the island, there 
is every reason to believe that the cinnamon, which 
in the earlier ages was imported into Europe through 
Arabia, was obtained first from Africa and afterward 
from India. That the Portuguese, who had been 
mainly attracted to the East by the fame of its spices, 
were nearly twenty years in India before they took steps 
to obtain a footing at Colombo, proves that there can 
have been nothing very remarkable in the quality of 
the spice at the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
and that the high reputation of the Ceylon cinnamon 
is comparatively modern and attributable to the atten- 
tion bestowed upon its preparation for market by the 
Portuguese and afterward on its cultivation by the 
Dutch. 

2. Long after the appearance of Europeans in 
Ceylon, cinnamon was only found in the forests of 
the interior, where it was cut and brought away by 
the Chalias, an emigrant tribe which, in consideration 
of its location in villages, was bound to go into the 
woods to cut and deliver, at certain prices, a given 
quantity of cinnamon properly peeled and ready for 
exportation. This system remained unchanged so 
long as Portugal was master of the country, but the 



182 THE PLANT WORLD. 

forests in wMcli the spice was found being exposed to 
constant incursions from the Kandjans, the Dutch 
were compelled to form inclosed plantations of their 
own within range of their fortresses. The native 
chieftains, fearful of losing the profits derived from 
the labors of the Chalias, who were attached as serfs 
' ^ their domains and whose work thej let out to the 
jjcttch, were at first extremely opposed to this innova- 
tion, and endeavored to persuade the Hollanders that 
the cinnamon would degenerate as soon as it was 
artificially planted. The withering of many of the 
young trees seemed to justify the assertion, but on a 
closer examination it was found that boiling water 
had been poured upon the roots. A law was now 
passed declaring the willful injury of a cinnamon 
plant punishable with death, and by this severity the 
product was saved. 

3. The extent of the trade during the time of the 
Dutch may be inferred from the fact that the five 
principal cinnamon gardens around l^ejombo, Co- 
lombo, Barberyn, Galle, and Maduro were each from 
fifteen to twenty miles in circumference. Although 
they were only first planted in the year 1770, yet be- 
fore 1796, when Colombo was taken by the English, 
their annual produce amounted to more than four 
hundred thousand pounds of cinnamon, as much as 
the demands of the market required. 

4. The profits must have been enormous, for cin- 
namon was then at least ten times dearer than at 
present, the trade being exclusively in the hands of 
the Dutch East Indian Company, which, in order to 



THE CINNAMON GARDENS OF CEYLON. 183 

keep up tlie price, restricted the production to a cei-tain 
quantity, and watched over its monopoly mth the 
most jealous tyranny. 'No one was allowed to plant 
cinnamon or to peel it, and the selling or importing 
of a single stick was punished as a capital offence. 
Since that time the cultivation of the cinnamon laurel 
having been introduced into many other tropica'' 
lands, competition has reduced prices, and the sjiv:^ 
which was formerly the main product of Ceylon is 
now of very inferior importance. The cinnamon 
gardens, whose beauty and luxuriance have been so 
often vaunted by travelers, have partly been sold, 
partly leased to private individuals, and, though less 
than a century has elapsed since they were formed 
by the Dutch, they are already becoming a wilderness. 
Those which surround Colombo on the land side ex- 
hibit the effects of a quarter of a century of neglect, 
and produce a feehng of disappointment and melan- 
choly. The beautiful shrubs which furnish this spice 
have been left to the wild growth of I^ature, and in 
some places are entirely supplanted by an under- 
growth of jungle, while in others a thick cover of 
climbing plants and other parasites conceals them 
under masses of verdure and blossom. 

5. It would, however, be erroneous to suppose 
that the cinnamon gardens have been universally 
doomed to the same neglect. Thus Prof. Schmarda, 
who visited Mr. Stewart's plantation two miles to the 
south of Colombo, admired the beautiful order in 
which it was kept. A reddish sandy clay and fine 
white quartz sand form the soil of the plantation. 



184 THE PLANT WORLD. 

White sand is considered as the best ground for the 
cinnamon-tree to grow on, but it requires an abun- 
dance of rain (which is never wanting in the south- 
western part of the island), much sun, and many ter- 
mites. For these otherwise so destructive creatures do 
not injure the cinnamon-trees, but render themselves 
useful bj destroying many other insects. They con- 
sequently remain unmolested, and everywhere raise 
their high conical mounds in the midst of the planta- 
tion. The aspect of a well-conditioned cinnamon 
garden is rather monotonous, for, though the trees 
when left to their full growth attain a height of forty 
or fifty feet, yet, as the best spice is furnished by the 
shoots that spring from the roots after the chief stem 
has been removed, they are kept as a kind of coppice 
and not allowed to rise higher than ten feet. 

G. Hartwig, "The Tropical World." 



CUEIOSITIES m THE VEGETABLE 
KINGDOM. 

1. The difference between animals and vegetables 
is so great that at first we do not perceive any resem- 
blance between them. Some animals only live in 
water, others on the earth or in the air, and some are 
amphibious, or live equally well in water as upon 
land. And this is literally the case with vegetables : 
some of them only grow upon land, others in the wa- 



CURIOSITIES IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 185 

ter ; some can scarcely bear any moisture, others live 
either in earth or water, and some even are found that 
exist in the air. 

2. There is a tree in an island of Japan which, 
contrary to the nature of all others to which moisture 
is necessary, can not bear the least portion. As soon 
as it is watered it perishes ; the only way to preserve 
it in such a case is to cut it off by the root, which is 
to be dried in the sun and afterward planted in a dry 
and sandy soil. A peculiar species of mushroom, 
some mosses, and other small plants, float in the air ; 
but what is more extraordinary, a branch of rosemary 
which, as is the custom of some countries, was put in 
the hand of a corpse, sprouted out to the right and 
left so vigorously that, after a lapse of some years, 
the grave being opened, the face of the defunct was 
overshadowed with rosemary -leaves. The vegetation 
of the truffle is still more singular. This extraordi- 
nary tubercle has neither roots, stem, leaves, flowers, 
nor seeds ; it derives its nourishment through the pores 
of its bark. But, it may be asked. How is it pro- 
duced ? why is there commonly no kind of herb in 
the places where this species of fungus grows ? and 
why is the land there dry and full of crevices ? These 
things have never been explained. 

3. 'No plant so much resembles animals as that 
species of membranous moss called nostoc; it is an 
irregular substance of a pale-green color and some- 
what transparent ; it trembles upon the slightest touch 
and easily breaks. It can only be seen after rain, and 
is then found in many places, particularly in unculti- 



186 THE PLANT WORLD. 

vated soils and sandy roads. It exists in all seasons, 
even in winter ; but is never so abundant as after rain 
in summer. The most remarkable circumstance about 
it is its speedy growth, being formed almost instanta- 
neously. Sometimes walking in the garden in sum- 
mer not a trace of it is seen, when, a sudden shower of 
rain falling, if the same place is visited in an hour the 
walks are entirely covered with it. The nostoc was 
long supposed to have descended from the sky, but it 
is now known to be a leaf which attracts and imbibes 
water with great avidity. This leaf, to which no root 
appears to belong, is in its natural state when impreg- 
nated with water ; but, a strong wind or great heat 
soon dissipating the water, the leaf contracts and loses 
its color and transparency ; hence it appears to grow 
so suddenly and to be so miraculously produced by a 
shower of rain, for when the rain falls upon it in its 
dried and imperceptible state it becomes reanimated 
and appears a fresh production. 

4. "We might readily enumerate a variety of plants 
that bear a resemblance to animals, but there are 
other peculiarities in vegetables which solicit our at- 
tention. The whole atmosphere is pregnant with 
plants and invisible seeds, and even the largest grains 
are dispersed h^ the wind over the earth, and as soon 
as they are transported to the places where they may 
germinate they become plants, and often so little soil 
is necessary for this purpose that we can scarcely con- 
ceive whence they derive the necessary degree of 
nourishment. There are plants, and even trees, which 
take root and grow in the clefts of rocks without any 



CURIOSITIES IN THE VEGETABLE KIXGDOM. 187 

soil. Yegetation is sometimes very rapid, of which 
we have instances in mushrooms and the common 
cresses, the seed of which, if put into a wet cloth, will 
be fit for a salad in twenty-four hours. 

5. There are plants that exist with scarcely any 
perceptible vitality. We often see willows which are 
not only hollowed and decayed within, but their ex- 
ternal bark is so much injured that very little of it 
remains, yet from these seemingly sapless trunks buds 
sprout in the spring and they are crowned with leaves 
and branches. How admirable that plants should not 
only imbibe nutriment by their roots, but that their 
leaves also should assist in this important function by 
inspiring air ! And an inverted tree will flourish as 
well as when in its proper position, for the branches 
will grow in the earth and become roots ! The ad- 
vanced age that some trees attain is also very wonder- 
ful. Some apple-trees are above a thousand years 
old, and if we calculate the amount of the annual pro- 
duce of such a tree for the above space of time, we 
shall find that a single pippin might supply all Eu- 
rope with trees and fruit. 

I. Platt, " The World's Encyclopaedia of Wonders 
and Curiosities." 



188 THE PLANT WORLD. 



THE PUMPKIK 



1. Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun, 
The yines of the gourd and the rich melon run, 
And the rock and the tree and the cottage infold. 
With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all 

gold, 
Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew, 
"While he waited to know that his warning was true. 
And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain 
For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire rain. 

2. On the banks of the Xenil, the dark Spanish maiden 
Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden ; 
And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold 
Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of 

gold; 
Yet with dearer delight from his home in the !N"orth, 
On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth. 
Where crooknecks are coiling and yellow fruit shines. 
And the sun of September melts down on his vines. 

3. Ah ! on Thanksgiving Day, when from East and 

from West, 
From IS^orth and from South, come the pilgrim and 

guest, 
When the gray-haired ]^ew-Englander sees round his 

board 
The old broken links of affection restored. 



THE PUMPKIN. 189 

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once 

more, 
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled 

before, 
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye ? 
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin-pie ? 

4. O fruit loved of boyhood ! the old days recalling ; 
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts 

were falling ! 
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin, 
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within ! 
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts 

all in tune, 
Our chair a broad pumpkin, our lantern the moon, 
Telling tales of the fairy who traveled like steam 
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team ! 

5. Then thanks for thy present ! none sweeter or better 
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter ! 
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more iSne, 
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than 

thine ! 
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to ex- 
press, 
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less ; 
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below, 
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow ; 
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky 
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own pumpkin-pie ! 

Whittier. 



190 THE PLANT WORLD. 



CAEll^IYOEOUS PLAINTS. 

1. In tlie whole range' of vegetable creation it 
will be difficult to find anything more curious than 
the carnivorous or flesh- eating plants. We think 
without any emotion of curiosity of animals eating 
plants, for this is the common law of ]^ature. But 
here we have the reverse marvel of plants devouring 
animals. It is not many years ago that the attention 
of naturalists was first specially called to the habits 
and character of these strange forms of vegetable life, 
though they have been known for about a century. 
It is Mr. Darwin, the celebrated philosopher, who has 
made so many wonderful discoveries in natural science 
— discoveries which have excited more discussion than 
those of any scientific man of his age, perhaps of all 
ages — who has done more than any other observer to 
explain the life and operations of the flesh-eating 
plants. 

2. For several centuries there had been strange 
rumors of huge plants in the more remote and un- 
visited parts of the Oriental countries which would 
imprison and destroy even large animals and men who 
ventured within reach of their great, quivering leaves, 
armed with hooked thorns, and would absorb the 
flesh of the dead victims into their structure. Asia 
has always been the land of mystery and marvel, but, 
like many another story of that far-off land, the giant 
flesh-eating tree or plant has so far proved to be a 
mere myth. Science has discovered, however, that 



CARNIVOROUS PLANTS. 191 

there is a foundation for this exciting fiction, and it 
has not needed to go to the distant lands of the East 
to find it, for fiesh-eating plants are by no means un- 
common in this country and Europe. These plants, 
however, confine their destructive properties to the 
flying and crawling insects which are beguiled to rest 
on their leaves. Such a strange provision of l^ature 
is no less interesting than if the carnivorous plants 
had the power to destroy the larger animals, for it is 
the fact itself which startles the attention, from its 
seeming reversal of ordinary laws. 

3. To use the words of Mr. Darwin, there can be 
no doubt that a plant of this description " digests ex- 
actly the same substances in exactly the same way that 
the human stomach does." Let us take as our first 
example the plant known as the Dionma musGipula^ 
or, to use the common name, Yenus's-fiytrap. About 
the year 1768 Mr. Ellis, an English naturalist, sent 
to the great Swedish botanist, Linnaeus, the follow- 
ing description of this plant : " The plant shows that 
Mature may have some views toward its nourish- 
ment in forming the upper joint of its leaf like a 
machine to catch food. Upon the middle of this lies 
the bait for the unhappy insect that becomes its prey. 
Many minute red glands, which cover its surface and 
which perhaps discharge sweet liquor, tempt the ani- 
mal to taste them, and the instant those tender parts 
are irritated by its feet the two lobes rise up, grasp 
it fast, lock the rows of spines together, and squeeze 
it to death. And further, lest the strong e£[ort for 
life in the creature just taken should serve to disen- 



192 THE PLANT WORLD. 

gage it, these small erect spines are fixed near the 
middle of eacli lobe among the glands that effectually 
put an end to its struggles. ISTor do the lobes ever 
open again while the dead animal continues there. 
But it is, nevertheless, certain that the plant can not 
distinguish an animal from a vegetable or mineral 
substance, for if we introduce a straw or pin between 
the lobes it will grasp it fully as fast as if it were an 
insect." 

4. This description, though written long before 
any very careful study of this class of plants has been 
made, is in the main correct, in spite of the failure to 
understand clearly that there was a well-defined pro- 
vision of ]^ature for supplying the plant with food. 
Each half of the leaf of a Yenus's-flytrap is a little 
concave on the inner side, where are placed these deli- 
cate hairlike organs, in such an order that an insect 
can hardly traverse it without interfering with one of 
them, when the two sides suddenly collapse and in- 
close the prey with a force defying all attempts at 
escape. The insect, however, does not appear to be 
crushed by the pressure, but is retained in the leafy 
cell until it becomes enveloped in a sort of sticky 
fiuid, which appears to be a solvent, like gastric juice, 
the fly being consumed in it and then absorbed into 
the tissues of the plant. 

5. One group of plants which live on animal food 
is known under the name of Drosera, or sundew. 
This plant may be described as consisting ot a tuft of 
diminutive orb-shaped leaves, from the center of 
which there shoots up in midsummer a slender stem 



CARNIVOROUS PLANTS. 193 

of inconspicuous flowers. As in tlie case of tlie 
Yenus's-fljtrap, tlie leaves of this plant are its distin- 
guisliing feature. These are covered with shining 
scarlet hairs which secrete at their tips drops of a 
clear viscid fluid resembling dew, which increase in 
size and number with the heat of the sun, while real 
dew would be quickly dried up under the same con- 
ditions. It is from this fact that the popular name of 
sundew is derived. But the design of this novel se- 
cretion is more strange than the fact of its production. 
Instantly that insects attracted by the fatal sweetness 
touch and taste, they are lost. The adhesive quality 
of the hquid holds them fast, while the dehcate hairs, 
moving slowly but surely on the victim, '^ their httle 
points like fangs and suck its juices, leaving only a 
dry carcass. This accomplished, they leisurely relax 
their hold, return to their natural position, and wait 
for fresh victims. Unlike the Yenus's-flytrap, the 
sundew takes no notice of the touch of anvthino^ un- 
suitable for its food. The sensitive fibers refuse to 
respond if they are touched by a straw or bit of 
paper, and it is only when their natural prey is felt 
that they show signs of life. The sundews are natives 
of the temperate parts of both hemispheres, and are 
found in dry and marshy places. 

6. Another plant of kindred character is that 
known as the Cephalotus^ which is a native of Austra- 
lia. It is an almost stemless herb, the upper part of 
which is divided into two or three short stems that 
bear clusters of purplish leaves. Among these leaves, 
principally occupying the surface, are several beautiful 
14" 



194: THE PLANT WORLD. 

c id curious pitclier-sliaped appendages, attached by 
stout stems. The form of the insect trap is shpper- 
shaped, the color green, tinged with purple, and it is 
furnished with two lateral oblique wings and a central 
one dilated at the margin. These wings are fringed 
with hairs, and over the top is a cup-shaped formation, 
which acts as a lid to the trap beneath. This trap is, 
as it were, baited with a sweet waterj fluid, which 
attracts the insects, especially ants. The inner walls 
are clouded with dark purple. The main stalk rises 
about two feet above the cluster of leaves, and is 
crowned in June and July with a cluster of small 
white flowers. 

7. Turning from these so-called sensitive-plants, in 
which there appears to be an intelhgent movement, 
something more than a merely automatic and, involun- 
tary action of the leaves, let us consider the second 
group of carnivorous plants, which may be grouped 
as pitcher-plants. The Sarracenia variolaris is a 
marked type, and is found in the Eastern and Southern 
States of ]^orth America, widely distributed. The 
whole inner surface of this tube-shaped flower is cov- 
ered with fine bristles, projecting inward and inclin- 
ing downward. This natural abattis extends to within 
a short distance of the bottom. Below this line of 
bristles the tube contains an astringent, sticky fluid, 
which acts the part of both a narcotic and digester of 
the ill-fated creature that lights on its treacherous 
surface. That there may be no lack of food, J^ature 
has provided this hypocritical plant with a cup of 
sweets which is distributed in the form of drops of 



CARNIVOROUS PLANTS. 195 

crystal honey. This secretion, which extends aloig 
the outer ridge of the plant to the ground, is sweet 
but not intoxicating, and it is up this alluring but 
fatal pathway that ants, bugs, and other creeping in- 
sects pass. Having once passed over the upper edge, 
the fly, ant, or beetle becomes entangled in the mesh 
of bristles within. Each struggle makes the end more 
certain, as the prey is continually forced downward 
till it falls into the fluid below, and then it passes 
rapidly through the stages of intoxication and death. 
So effectual is the breastwork of bristles that the 
insect rarely escapes which crawls over the Vim of 
that voracious cup. The tube is often found filled 
to the depth of several inches vtdth a mass of decaying 
hornets, beetles, ants, flies, "and worms. 

8. Yet while insects of nearly every description 
are found in this fatal pitcher, there are two which 
successfully brave its dangers and make their home 
in its leaves. One of these is a small moth, the 
larva of which makes a web just within the mouth of 
the tube and feeds on its substance. The other is a 
flesh-fly, which drops her living larvae into the tube to 
the number of a dozen or more. These feed on the 
soft parts of the dead insects and on each other, so 
that only one finally matures to burrow its way 
through the base of the tube into the ground and be- 
come a full-fledged fly. In this way the destructive 
plant furnishes a nest and food for one of the crea- 
tures on whose race it makes such continual war. 

9. Closely allied to this Eastern genus of the 
pitcher-plant is the Darlingtonia^ which is found on 



196 THE PLANT WORLD. 

the western slopes of the Sierra ISTevada. This plant 
has pitchers of two forms, one peculiar to the infant 
state and constructed in the form of a twisted leaf, 
and the other a large pitcher with an inflated head 
which acts as a roof over the tube below. The flabby 
two-leafed organ which hangs from the outer edge of 
the head is orange-red in color, and smeared with a 
sweet liquid on its inner surface. In the interior 
structure of this plant there is a close resemblance to 
the preceding one. We find the same network of 
bristles, the same vat of intoxicating liquid below. 
The head over the plant is perfectly waterproof, and 
not a drop of rain or dew can ever get in to dilute 
the strength of the death-doing secretion. In addi- 
tion to the attraction of 'the honey-sweet fluid, the 
colors of this plant seem to be chosen with a view to 
charm the eye of the insect, and thus allure it to death 
by the power of beauty. 

10. The third, and in many respects most formi- 
dable, type of carnivorous plants of this family is the 
Wejpenthes^ which numbers upward of thirty different 
species. They are wood-climbers, and the action of 
the tendrils is a feature of equal interest with the 
functions of the pitcher-shaped flower. In the young 
plant the lid of the pitcher is tightly closed, but with 
age it rises on the hinge and opens the cup to the 
entrance of rain and dew. It is stated that these 
pitchers have been found on the mountains of Borneo 
measuring a foot and a half in length, and with a 
bowl large enough to drown a small animal or a good- 
sized bird. Regarding the interior formation of these 



CARNIVOROUS PLANTS. 197 

bowls, we are told that from the mouth to a variable 
distance down the pitcher is an opaque, smooth sur- 
face, formed with a fine network of cells, covered with 
a glass-like cuticle, which gives the insect no possible 
foothold. Though exposed to the entrance of the rain, 
the fluid in the cup is always acid, almost caustic, and 
doubtless it is the digestive fluid of the plant. 

11. That animal food is essential to the growth 
and development of all these plants i^ beyond all 
question. On close examination of a cross-section of 
the pitcher of One of these vegetable ghouls there are 
found near the bottom tubular cells leading down 
through the stem into the main stalk. Through 
these pipes or canals the liquid manure, so to speak, 
resulting from the decomposition of insects, is con- 
veyed to the various parts of the plant. The simi- 
larity between this process and natural digestion will 
at once impress itself on the mind. Many other 
plants besides those which have been described are 
flesh- eaters, and it is probable that science, as it ex- 
tends its observations, will greatly increase the hst. 
There are many parts of the world, especially in the 
vast forests of the tropics, whose deep and gloomy 
shades have never been penetrated by the eye of man, 
and it would be by no means surprising if the adven- 
turous naturalist should yet discover some monstrous 
growth which would surpass, in the extent of its ap- 
petite and its power of gratifying it, any plant yet 
discovered — some ravenous shark or tiger of the vege- 
table creation. 

Anonymous, " A World of Wonders." 



198 THE PLANT WORLD. 



THE COTTOISr-PLAl^T. 

1. Under the Flantagenets and the Tudors wool 
formed the chief export of England. The pastoral 
races that inhabited the British Isles, unskilled in 
weaving, suffered the more industrious Flemings to 
convert their fleeces into tissues ; and the dominions 
of the Duke of Burgundy, enriched by manufactures 
and by the stimulus they gave to agriculture, became 
the most prosperous part of Europe. At length the 
islanders began to discover the sources of the wealth 
which rendered Ghent and Bruges, Ypres and Lou- 
vain, the marvel and envy of the mediseval world ; 
and, gradually learning to keep their wool at home, 
invited the Flemings to the shores of England. 

2. The bigoted oppression of Spain came in aid 
of this more enlightened policy. Our wool ceased to 
be sent abroad, and English cloth eventually became 
the chief of our exports. But, like all human affairs, 
trade is subject to eternal fluctuation, new wants are 
constantly created, new markets opened, new articles 
introduced, and thus, almost within the memory of 
living man, the wool-manufactory has ceased to be 
the great staple of our industry ; and, thanks to the 
inventive genius of our Arkwrights and Cromptong, 
a vegetable fiber furnished by a plant totally unknown 
to our forefathers now ranks as the first of all the 
world-wide importations of England. 

3. There are many different species of the cotton- 
plant — ^herbaceous, shrubby, and arboreal. Their 



THE COTTON-PLANT. I99 

original birtliplace is the tropical zone, where they are 
found grooving wild in all parts of the world ; but the 
herbaceous species still thrive under a mean tempera- 
ture of from 60° to 64° F., and are capable of being 
cultivated with advantage as far as 40° or even 46° 
north latitude. The five-lobed leaves have a dark- 
green color, the flowers are yellow with a purple cen- 
ter, and produce a pod about the size of a walnut, 
which, when ripe, bursts and exhibits to view the fleecy 
cotton in which the seeds are securely imbedded. 

4. It is almost superfluous to mention that the 
United States is the first cotton -producing country in 
the world. The area suitable for cotton south of the 
thirty-sixth degree of latitude comprises more than 
thirty-nine milhon acres, of which less than one sixth 
part is now devoted to the plant. The yield depends 
in part upon the length of season. Seven months are 
required for an average crop, and the average periods 
in which the last killing frost, of spring and the first 
killing frost of autumn occur are March 23d and Oc- 
tober 26th. Cotton is cultivated in large fields, and, 
when the soil is superior, the plant rises to a height 
of six or eight feet, although in the richest canebrake 
soil, exhausted by successive crops, it dwindles down 
to a height of three or four feet only. The aspect of 
a^ cotton field is most pleasing in the autumn, when 
the dark-colored foliage and bright yellow flowers, 
intermingling with the snow-white down of the pods 
when burst, produce a charming contrast. At that 
time all hands are at work, for it is important to pluck 
as much as possible during the first hours of morning. 



200 THE PLANT WORLD. 

since the heat of the sun injures the color of the cot- 
ton, and the over-ripe capsules shed their contents upon 
the ground or allow the wind to carry them away. 

5. The collected produce is immediately 'carried 
to the steam-mill to be cleansed of the seeds and then 
closely packed in bales, which in the seaports are 
further reduced by hydraulic presses to half their 
previous volume, thus causing a great saving in the 
freight. Large clippers frequently carry eight or ten 
thousand of these bales to Liverpool, whence, perhaps 
on the day of their arrival, they are conveyed by rail 
to the next manufacturing town, which returns them 
in a few days to the port, ready to clothe the Austra- 
lian gold-digger or the laborer on the banks of the 
Ganges. 

6. India, which still in the last century provided 
Europe with the finest cambrics and muslins, now 
yearly receives from England cotton goods to a large 
amount. Thus the stream of trade may be said to 
have rolled backward to its source, for though the 
wants of the Hindoo are easily satisfied and cotton 
grows at his very door, yet his hand-loom is unable to 
compete with the machinery and the capital of Eng- 
land. Even in the exportation of the raw material 
he labors under great disadvantage when compared 
with America, though railroads and ? better system of 
culture have done much to improve the quality and 
facilitate the transport of Indian cotton. 

G. Hartwig, "The Tropical World." 



THE ROSE AMONG THE ANCIENTS. 201 



THE EOSE AMOKG THE AKCIE:n:TS. 

1. The rose was the theme of the earliest poets of 
antiquity, and it was doubtless one of the first plants 
selected to adorn the gardens which were laid out 
around the new habitations constructed upon the ex- 
change of the wandering for a civilized mode of life. 
The most ancient authors upon husbandry whose 
works are extant have all treated of the culture of 
roses : Theophrastus among the Greeks, and among 
the Romans Yarro, Columella, Palladius, and Pliny. 
To Pliny are we specially indebted for information 
on this subject, as the entire fourth chapter of the 
twentieth book of his " ]^atural History" is devoted 
to roses, and they are also occasionally mentioned in 
other parts of the work. But after all the informa- 
tion thus obtained much yet remains to be desired, 
and, although we find in other ancient authors some 
curious facts bearing upon other points in the history 
of the rose, they are mostly so general in their char- 
acter as to give us very little insight into the actual 
culture Qf the rose at those periods. 

2. The profuseness with which they were used 
among the Greeks, the Pomans, the Egyptians, and 
other ancient natii)ns in their religious solemnities, 
their public ceremonies, and even in the ordinary cus- 
toms of private life, would lead us to suppose, and 
with some degree of correctness, that roses were very 
abundantly cultivated by them all, and we are in- 
clined to think that their cultivation was then far more 



202 THE PLANT WORLD. 

general than at the present time, although the art of 
producing them was in its infancy. However surpris- 
ing in other respects may have been the progress of 
the culture of roses within forty years, particularly 
in France, Holland, and Belgium, there can be little 
doubt that, although the Eomans were acquainted with 
a much smaller number of varieties than the moderns, 
yet flowers of those varieties were far more abundant 
than the aggregate quantity of flowers of all the varie- 
ties of roses cultivated at the present day. It can 
not be positively asserted that the hybrid perpetual 
roses of the present day were unknown at Eome, 
since the gardeners of that city practiced sowing the 
seeds of the rose, by which mode many of the most 
remarkable varieties of that class have been obtained 
by modern cultivators. The Romans, however, pre- 
ferred to propagate by cuttings, which produced flow- 
ers much sooner than the seed-bed. 

3. But, though the Eomans may have had roses of 
the same species with some of those which we now 
cultivate, it is scarcely probable that these species 
could have continued until this period and escaped 
the devastation attendant on the revolutions of em- 
pire, or the more desolating invasions of the Huns 
and Goths. Thus it is that those roses of Psestum to 
which allusion is so frequently made by ancient writ- 
ers, and which, according to Yirgil and Pliny, bloomed 
semi-annually and were common in the gardens 
of that city, are not now to be found. Jussieu and 
Laudresse, two French botanists, successively visited 
Italy with the express object of finding this twice- 



THE ROSE AMONG THE ANCIENTS. 203 

bearing rose in Psestum or its environs, jet, notwith- 
standing their carefnlly prosecuted researches, thej 
could find no traces of it whatever. Although the 
number of varieties known to the Romans was very 
Hmited, they had discovered a method of making the 
blooming season continue many months. According 
to Phny, the roses of Carthage, in Africa, came for- 
ward early and bloomed in winter, those of Campania 
bloomed next in order, then those of Malta, and, 
lastly, those of Paestum, which flowered in the spring 
and autumn. It was probably the blooming of this 
last species which the gardeners of Rome discovered 
(in Seneca's time) the secret of retarding by a certain 
process, or of hastening by means of their warm 
greenhouses. 

4. The Romans derived the use of this flower 
from the G-reeks. In Greece and throughout the 
East roses were cultivated, not only for the various 
purposes we have mentioned, but also for the extrac- 
tion of their perfumes. Among the many plans which 
they adopted for preserving the flower was that of 
cutting off the top of a reed, splitting it down a short 
distance, and inclosing in it a number of rose-buds, 
which, being bound around with papyrus, prevented 
their fragrance from escaping. The Greeks also 
deemed it a great addition to the fragrance of the rose 
to plant garlic near its roots. The island of Rhodes, 
which has successively borne many names, was par- 
ticularly indebted to the culture of roses for that 
which it bears at this day. It was the Isle of Roses, 
the Greek for rose being Rodon. Medals of Rhodes, 



204 THE PLANT WORLD. 



"\ 



whose reverse impressions present a rose in bloom on 
one side and the sunflower on the other, are to be 
found even now in cabinets of curiosities. 

5. Extravagance in roses among the Romans kept 
pace with the increase of their power, until they at 
length desired them at all seasons. At first thej pro- 
cured their winter's supply from Egypt, but subse- 
quently attained themselves such skill in their culture 
as to produce them in abundance, even at the coldest 
season of the year, and, according to Seneca, by means 
of greenhouses heated by pipes filled with hot water. 
During the reign of Domitian the forcing of roses was 
carried to such perfection, and flowers produced in 
winter in so great abundance, that those brought from 
Egypt, as before mentioned, excited only the con- 
tempt of the citizens of the world's metropolis. This 
fact, as also handed down to us by the epigram of 
Martial, is of great assistance in estimating the impor- 
tance of rose-culture at that period, and in showing 
how the art of cultivating this plant had spread, and 
how it was already far advanced among the ancient 
Romans and their contemporaries. 

6. If the Egyptians cultivated roses for transpor- 
tation to Rome during the winter, they must have had 
very extensive plantations for the purpose. The ex- 
portation could not have been of loose flowers, "for 
they would have been withered long before the ter- 
mination of the voyage ; neither could it have been 
of rooted plants in a dormant state, as nurserymen 
now send them to every part of the world, because 
the Romans had at that time no means of causing 



THE ROSE AMONG THE ANCIENTS. 205 

them to vegetate and bldom in the winter. On the 
contrary, the cultivators at Alexandria and Memphis 
must, of necessity, have sent them away in the vases 
and boxes in which they had planted them with that 
object, and when they were just beginning to break 
from the bnd, in order that they might arrive at 
Rome at the moment they commenced expanding. 
At that remote period, when navigation was far be- 
hind its present state of perfection, the voyage from 
the mouth of the Mle to the coast of Italy occupied 
more than twenty days. When this long voyage is 
considered, and also the quantity of roses required by 
the Romans to en wreath their crowns and garlands, 
to cover their tables and couches and the pavements 
of their festive halls, and to surround the urns which 
contained the ashes of their dead, it is evident that 
the Egyptians, who traded in roses, in order to satisfy 
the prodigality of the Romans, would be compelled 
to keep in readiness a certain number of vessels to be 
laden with boxes or vases of rose-plants, so prepared 
as not to bloom before their delivery at Rome. The 
cost of roses thus delivered in Rome must have been 
immense, but we do not find a single passage in an- 
cient authors which can give any light on this point ; 
they only tell us that nothing for the gratification 
of luxury was considered too costly by the wealthy 
Roman citizens. 

7. Nor do they afford more positive information 
as to the species of rose cultivated on the borders of 
the Mle, to gratify this taste of the Romans. Ac- 
cording to Delile, there were founj in Egypt at the 



206 THE PLANT WORLD. 

time of the French expedition into that country only 
the white rose and the Centifolia or hundred-leaved 
— ^two species not very susceptible of either a forcing 
or retarding culture. The only rose known at that 
time which bloomed in the winter was the rose of 
Psestum, referred to by Yirgil as '' biferique rosaria 
Psesti," and which was probably the same as our 
monthly damask rose, and which produced in Egypt 
and Pome flowers at all seasons, as the damask doe^ 
now with us, under a proper mode of culture. 

Samuel B. Parsons, " The Bose." 



A CHAPTEK 0]Sr FLOWEES. 

" With what a glory comes and goes the year ! 
The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers 
Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy 
Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out; 
And when the silver habit of the clouds 
Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with 
A sober gladness the old year takes up 
His bright inheritance of golden fruits, 
A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene." 

Longfellow. 

1. Flowers ! Wild flowers ! how full of associa- 
tion is the very name ! How fraught with reminis- 
cences of the breezy hill ; how redolent of woodland 
odors ; how musical with the dash of the waterfall, 



A CHAPTEH ON FJ.OVVERS. 207 

the rushing of the mountain stream, the rustling of 
the sedgy rivulet ! The blossoms which reward our 
patient care within the garden's bounds are beautiful 
bejond compare ; they have grown up beneath our 
guardianship, and they recompense us as only I^ature 
can recompense the heart that values her gifts. They 
are beautiful, and we watch their development, we 
dwell upon their loveliness, we drink their perfumed 
breath with a sense of pleasure and of pride. But 
the wild flowers — ^the gems which God's own hand 
has scattered abroad in the wilderness — blossoms sown 
by the wind, nursed by the shower, peering from 
their covert on the hillside, smihng upon us from the 
cleft of some dark ravine, looking down tenderly 
from the face of some rugged cliff — these bring to 
our souls those surprises of sudden joy which keep 
the heart forever awake to a blessedness like that of 
innocent childhood. 

" Nature ne'er betrays 
The heart that loves her. Other joys may fail, 
And other hopes may wither ; bUght may fall 
On Love's fair blossom, and dark mildew steal 
O'er wealth's rich gifts ; the laurel crown may di'op 
Its shining leaves, and all that men most prize 
May cheat their souls with promises untrue; 
But Nature's gifts are boundless, she doth show 
Ever a loving face to those who come 
In lowliness of spirit to her shrine." 

2. Of all remedies for a world-wearied spirit, 
commend me to a day in the woods. The feeling of 
freedom, the unconsciousness of having left turmoil 



208 THE PLANT WORLD. 

and disquiet behind, becomes the first element of re- 
pose to the heart. Then come the thousand new de- 
lights — new, even if enjoyed a myriad of times before 
— which I^ature offers to our acceptance. The soul 
and the sense alike are gratified. Beneath our feet is 
spread a carpet of moss and fallen leaves, whose 
elastic fabric gives buoyancy to our step. "We inhale 
the spicy fragrance of the woodland air ; we gaze up- 
ward and behold the towering majesty of the forest 
king ; we look beside us, and the meek beauty of the 
wild flower greets the eye ; while the ear, pained so 
long by the confused murmur of a crowd, is now 
soothed by a stillness unbroken save by JSTature's 
voices. 

3. Let us forth and wander, in memory or in 
fancy, through such a scene, in the soft balmy days 
of early summer, or beneath the lingering influences 
of departing spring. The sun beats with too fierce a 
heat on the upland walk ; but lo ! a green and 
sheltered vale invites our steps, and leads to the cool 
forest shade. We seek no path, for we would fain 
wind as we list through the leafy labyrinth, and look 
on J^ature in her most secluded bowers. The inter- 
lacing branches have shut out every ray of sunshine, 
and the shadows lie in heavy blackness upon the thick 
turf. A pleasant shiver runs through the heated 
frame, and we pause a moment to enjoy the grateful 
coolness. A little onward lies a discrowned monarch 
of the woods ; he has fallen beneath the weight of 
years, and moss and wild vines are wreathing the up- 
turned roots, while from the spot where he once flour- 



A CHAPTER ON FLOWERS. 209 

ished are already springing other trees and of a totally 
different race. 

4. How beautifully tlie sunshine breaks into the 
glade through the opening left by the ruined tree ! 
See how it flickers through the maple's spreading 
branches, glancing with arrowy beams between the 
pagoda-like boughs of the hemlock, and touching with 
gold the dark leaves of the gnarled oak, while it falls 
like network upon the greensward, bringing out a 
thousand beauties before unseen. Look how the red 
berries of the serpent's-eye moss gleam out from their 
velvet sheaths, mark the pale beauty of yon clump of 
violets, whose perfume would betray their presence, 
even though we saw them not. Behold the gorgeous 
garb of that glowing wood-lily, lifting its head as if in 
wonder at this sudden intrusion of sunlight upon its 
royal retiracy. 

5. Let us seat ourselves at the root of this rough 
old oak. The short grass lies thick beneath our feet, 
while a cushion of rich velvet moss is spread over the 
rustic couch we have chosen. Oh ! we have driven 
a tiny snake from his covert, and he glides rapidly 
away from his woman-bom enemy. The squirrel — 
the harlequin of the woods — ^bounds in antic mirth 
"above our heads, and, as he looks down upon us with 

a sort of ludicrous gravity in his little black eyes, 
seems disposed to test our humor by showering his nut- 
shells in the midst of us. The rabbit gazes out from 
his hiding-place, and then, pointing his long ears in 
terror, leaps away to find some more secure retreat. 
Nor are there wanting sweet sounds in this sylvan 
15 



210 THE PLANT WORLD. 

hall. High on the topmost bough of the tallest tree 
(for he is the most ambitious of warblers) is poised 
the bluebird, making the clear air echo with his rich 
notes. The gushing melody of the wood-robin comes 
at intervals like the bubbling over of a musical foun- 
tain, while blended in sweet concord come the voices 
of an indistinguishable throng of lesser songsters. 
And when, beneath the midday sun, the birds cease 
their carols, then we have the vague music of leafy 
harps, the distant murmur of a mountain stream, the 
quiet ripple of a woodland brook. 

" Earth speaks in many voices : from the roar 

Of the wild cataract, whose ceaseless din 
Shakes the far forest and resounding shore, 

To the meek rivulet, which seems to win 
Its modest way amid spring's pleasant bowers, 
Singing its quiet tune to charm earth's perfumed flowers. 

" Earth speaks in many voices: from. the song 

Of the free bird which soars to heaven's high porch, 

As if on joy's full tide it swept along 

To the low hum which wakens when the torch 

Summons the insect myriads of the night 

To sport their little hour and perish in the light. 

" Earth speaks in many voices : music breathes 
In the sweet murmur of the summer breeze 

That plays around the wild flower's pendent wreaths, 
Or swells its diapason 'mid the trees 

When eve's cold shadow steals o'er lawn and lea. 

And day's glad sounds give place to twilight minstrelsy." 

6. Eeader, did you ever spend a day in the woods, 
loitering the hours away amid sights and sounds like 



A CHAPTER ON FLOWERS. 211 

these, and wending your course homeward at night- 
fall with a handful of flowers, a bunch of moss, or a 
curiously knotted stick as your only visible reward, 
while the wise and practical notabilities who call 
themselves your friends would shake their heads, half 
in scorn, half in pity, of your idleness and folly ? 
And did you not feel that the patience with which 
you listened to the lessons of narrow-minded world- 
liness was gained from the quiet teachings of JS^ature 
in her woodland temple ? 

T. Oh ! it is good for the heart to give itself up to 
such pure and genial influences. Refreshing to the 
soul are these frequent draughts from the well-spring 
of truth. We learn prudence and circumspection and 
self -concealment in our intercourse with the world ; 
but it is only in the presence of the works of God that 
we learn to commune with the living soul which he 
has breathed into our frail and perishing body. In 
the thronged marts of our busy cities so much is done 
by man, so many wonderful things are achieved by 
his enterprise and genius, that we are apt to forget 
the Creator who gave him power over all things 
earthly. But when we see around us the rich garni- 
ture of the flelds, the hills clothed in verdure, the 
trees lifting their proud heads to heaven, the flowers 
opening their many-colored urns of incense to the 
breeze, when we hear no sounds but the voices of 
God's humbler creatures, then do we feel ourselves 
alone in the presence of the Most High. Then 
do we find that within the recesses of our hearts 
is a sanctuary where only God is worshiped ; then 



212 THE PLANT WORLD. 

do we learn the mystery of faith and the peace of 
hope. 

8. It was Wordsworth, was it not ? who thanked 
God for the mountains, feehng in his utmost heart 
how much the sublimity of external hfe aided the 
soul in its lofty soarings to the infinite. May we not 
also thank the Creator in the same spirit for the lowly 
blossom which spangles the wayside, as if to show that 
the Being whose omnipotent hand could fix the moun- 
tain on its rocky base had yet the omniscient good- 
ness to foresee and provide for the humblest wants of 
his creatures. As if to make us feel that the Almighty 
Creator was also our " Father in heaven." 

9. Beautiful indeed are the wild flowers of our 
own dear land. They grow not in hedge-rows and 
beside the tiny cottage, but they hide within the 
forest, they climb the lofty mountain, they enamel 
our wide expanse of wilderness. Listen to the sweet 
utterance of " Eva the Sinless " : 

" They tremble on the mountain height, 

The fissured rock they press, 
The desert wild with heat and sand 

Shares too their blessedness ; 
And wheresoe'er the weary heart 

Turns in its dim despair, 
The meek-eyed blossom upward looks 

Inviting it to prayer. 

" Each tiny leaf becomes a scroll 
Inscribed with holy truth, 
A lesson that around the soul 
Should keep the dew of youth. 



THE TALIPOT-TREE. 213 

Bright missals from angelic throngs 

In every wayside left : 
How were the earth of glory shorn 

Were it of flowers bereft ! " 

Emma C. Embuey, " American Wild Flowers." 



THE TALIPOT-TKEE. 

1. There are few objects in the vegetable king- 
dom more remarkable and beautiful, or more useful 
to man, than the talipot-tree, which is a species of 
palm (the Corypha uinbracuUfera of Linnseus) pecul- 
iar to the island of Cejlon and the Malabar coast. It 
is said to be found also in the Marquesas and Friendly 
Islands. Robert Knox says that it is as big and tall 
as a ship's mast, but Cordiner gives more definite 
dimensions by stating that one which he measured 
was a hundred feet high and five feet in circumfer- 
ence near the ground. The stem of this tree is per- 
fectly straight ; it gradually diminishes as it ascends, 
the circumference of the upper part being about half 
that of the base ; it is strong enough to resist the most 
violent tropical winds. It has no branches, and the 
leaves only spring from its summit. These leaves, 
which when on the tree are almost circular, are of 
such prodigious diameter that they can shelter ten 
or a dozen (Knox says from fifteen to twenty) men, 
standing near to each other. 



214 THE PLANT WORLD. 

2. Tlie flower of the tree whicli shoots above the 
leaves is at first a cluster of bright yellow blossoms, 
exceedingly beautiful to the eye, but emitting an odor 
too strong and pungent to be agreeable. Before its 
development the flower is inclosed in a hard rind, 
which rind, upon the expansion of the flower, bursts 
with a sharp noise. The flower shoots pyramidically 
to a great height, frequently adding as much as thirty 
feet to the elevation of the tree. From the flower 
proceed the fruit or seeds, which are as large as cher- 
ries, and exceedingly numerous, but not eatable ; they 
are only useful as seeds to reproduce and multiply the 
tree. It appears that the natives do not sow them, 
but leave that operation entirely to IsTature. The 
flower and the fruit only appear once on one tree. 
Their appearance betokens that the tree has attained 
to old age, which, according to the natives, it does in 
a hundred years ; Ribeyro, a Portuguese writer, says 
in about thirty years, which is more hkely to be cor- 
rect. As soon as the fruit or seeds are ripe, the tree 
dries up and decays so rapidly that in two or three 
weeks it is seen prostrate and rotting on the ground. 

3. Knox asserts that if the tree be cut down be- 
fore it runs to seed, the pith, largely contained within 
the stem, is nutritious and wholesome, and adds that 
the natives take this pith "and beat in mortars to 
flour, and bake cakes of it, which taste much like to 
wheat bread, and it serves them instead of corn before 
their harvest be ripe." We have not found these cakes 
mentioned by any other writer on Ceylon, but as Knox 
was so veracious and correct, we may admit that the 



THE TALIPOT-TREE. 215 

natives were accustomed to make them. A better- 
kiio^\Ti fact about the uses of the inner parts of the 
tree is that sago is made from them. The stem or 
trunk of the talipot, like that of most other palms, is 
extremely hard without but soft and spongy within, 
the greater part of its diameter being a soft, bro^vnish, 
cellular substance. The sago is made by beating the 
spongy part of the stem in a mortar, by which means 
the fecula is procured. 

4. Still, however, the great usefulness of the tree 
is in its leaves. Growing on the tree, these leaves, 
when expanded, are of a beautiful dark-green color ; 
but those chiefly used are cut before they spread out, 
and have, and retain for ages, a pale, brownish -yellow 
color, not unlike old parchment. Their preparation 
for use is very simple : they are rubbed with hard, 
smooth pieces of wood, which express any humidity 
that may remain, and increase their pliabihty, which 
is naturally very great. This wonderful leaf is made 
like a fan, and like a fan it can be closed or expanded, 
and Avith almost as little exertion. It is in fact used 
as a fan by the natives of Ceylon, and is at the same 
time their only umbrella and parasol ; in addition to 
which uses it forms their only tent when they are in 
the field, and, cut up into strips, it serves them to 
wi'ite upon instead of paper. 

5. The leaf is so light that an entire one can be 
carried in the hand ; but as this, from its great size 
when expanded, would be inconvenient, the natives 
cut segments from it, which they use to defend them- 
selves from the scorching rays of the sun or from the 



216 THE PLANT WORLD. 

rains. The narrow part is carried foremost, the better 
to enable those who use them to penetrate through 
the woods and thickets with which most of the coun- 
try abounds. ]^o handles are used, but the two sides 
of the leaf are grasped by the bearer. " This," says 
Knox, in his quaint manner, " is a marvelous mercy 
which Almighty God hath bestowed upon this poor 
and naked people in this rainy country ! " He ought 
to have added in this hot country, for the heats of 
Ceylon, whose mean temperature is eighty-one de- 
grees, are frequently and for long periods tremendous, 
and the talipot-leaf is quite as valuable a protection 
against them as against rain. 

6. However much water may fall on the leaf, it 
imbibes no humidity, remaining dry and light as ever. 
The British troops, in their campaign in the jungles 
against the Cingalese in 1817 and 1818, found to their 
cost how excellent a preservative it was against wet 
and damp. The enemy's musketmen were furnished, 
each with a talipot-leaf, by means of which they 
always kept their arms and powder perfectly dry, 
and could fire upon the invading forces, while fre- 
quently the British muskets, which had no such pro- 
tection, were rendered useless by the heavy rains and 
the moisture of the woods and thickets. 

7. As tents, the talipot-leaves are set up on end. 
Two or three talipot umbrellas thus employed make 
an excellent shelter, and from being so light and port- 
able, each leaf folding up to the size of a man's arm, 
they are admirably adapted for this important service. 
The chiefs, moreover, have regularly formed square 



THE TALIPOT-TREE. 217 

tents made of them. In these the leaves are neatly 
sewed together and laid over a framework ; the whole 
is light, and can be packed up in a very small compass. 

8. When used in lieu of paper, as we have men- 
tioned, thej are cut into strips (those which we have 
seen are about fifteen inches long by three broad), 
soaked for a short time in boihng water, rubbed back- 
ward and forward over a smooth piece of wood to 
make them phable, and then carefully dried. The 
Cingalese write or engrave their letters upon them 
mth a stylus, or pointed steel instrument, and then 
rub them over with a dark-colored substance, which, 
only remaining in the parts etched or scratched, gives 
the characters greater relief, and makes them more easy 
to read. The coloring matter is rendered liquid by 
being mixed with cocoanut oil, and when dry is not 
easily effaced. On common occasions they write on 
the leaf of another species of palm-tree, but the tali- 
pot is used in all government dispatches, important 
documents, such as title-deeds to estates, etc., and in 
their books. A Cingalese book is a bundle of these 
strips tied up together. As even the lawyers and the 
learned in this country are very deficient in chrono- 
logical knowledge, great confusion occurs as to dates ; 
and it is very common to see a Cingalese judge at- 
tempting to ascertain the antiquity of a document 
produced in court by smelling and cutting it. 

9. The oil employed in the writing imparts a strong 
odor which preserves it from insects, but this odor is 
changed by age. The talipot, however, appears to 
have in itself a natural quality which deters the at- 



218 THE PLANT WORLD. 

tack of insects, and preserves it from the decay of age 
even without the oil. It may be worth while observ- 
ing that the Cingalese, who engrave the most solemn 
of their deeds, such as the foundation of donations to 
a temple, on plates of fine copper, which are generally 
neatly edged with silver, always make these plates of 
precisely the same shape as the talipot strips used for 
writing. 

10. Besides all the uses described, the Cingalese 
employ the talipot-leaf extensively in thatching their 
houses. They also manufacture hats from it; these 
hats are made with brims as broad as an outstretched 
umbrella, and are chiefly worn by women nursing, to 
defend them and their infants from the heat. 

11. The talipot is not a very common tree at pres- 
ent, and is rarely seen growing by those who only visit 
the coasts of the island and do not penetrate into the 
interior. It seems to grow scattered among other trees 

in the forests. 

Anonymous, " The Wonders of the World." 



A TALK ABOUT USEFUL PLANTS. 

1. The world is a great picture-book. Wherever we 
walk or ride over its surface we see the picture-stories 
on its stones and leaves. We see the grand procession 
of its seasons, the winds, the storms, heat and cold, 
sunlight and shadow, and we read in the rocks the 
history of the world. We have already observed that 



A TALK ABOUT USEFUL PLANTS. 219 

the surface of the globe has been prepared by frosts 
and rains as a home for all nsefuland beautiful plants 
— ^the rose, the cotton-plant, the vine, the grass for 
the cattle of the field, the trees that give us shade and 
shelter, and other useful plants bearing fruits after 
their kind. Where there is soil of any kind we may 
find plants. Except in a few barren and desolate 
places, we shall find plants covering the entii'e surface 
of the ground, and even extending under water along 
all the coasts. Any spot of ground, if the chmate be 
favorable, will be covered with plants in time. 'No 
matter how thin the soil, plants will begin to grow, 
and, dying, prepare a place for others. We may dig 
up barren sand, and put it in a warm place and give 
it water, and plants will appear. "We may break up a 
stone and place the dry powder in a greenhouse, and 
in a few weeks it will be covered with a green film. 
If we examine this with a microscope, we shall find 
the soft slime that has gathered on the broken stone 
is formed of minute plants. Every stone wall along a 
country lane becomes in a few months covered with 
minute plants that we call lichens and mosses. Stag- 
nant water in warm weather is soon tinted green, and a 
powerful glass will show in a single drop hundreds of 
fast-growing plants. We may leave a piece of bread 
in a closet, and find after a few days that it is spotted 
with mold, and this soft gray matter, we shall find, is 
a plant, a mold-plant. Everywhere in the air are the 
seeds of plants, ready at all times to spring up as new 
plants. In June and July, in the ^Northern and 
Middle States, any spot of soil left untouched for 



220 THE PLANT WORLD. 

ten days will be covered with growing plants. In 
some of the Southern States not a spot of ground re- 
mains undisturbed more than a few weeks at any time 
without new plants appearing as by magic. We can 
dig up the subsoil anywhere and scatter it upon the 
surface in June, and it will soon be green. We can 
dig up a frozen clod from the garden in January and 
put it in a flower-pot in a warm window, and in a few 
days after it has thawed and dried, plants of some kind 
will begin to grow. There may be soils in deserts, 
but there is no rain. There may be soils in Grreen- 
land, but it is always winter. Wherever there is a 
soil and the right climate, we shall find plants. 

2. ]S"ot only are there plants to be found in all 
parts of the earth, but there is every reason to think 
that they have been growing on some part of our 
globe for a very long time. Some of the plants we 
now see in our gardens are known to have been 
growing in China and Egypt three thousand years 
before Christ was born. That time is short indeed 
for others, and we must count backward millions on 
millions of years to the time when they first began to 
grow. The plants that grew in those old days were 
probably very small, neither bearing fruit nor fit for 
food for animals. Then there came slowly better and 
larger plants. There were new soils and new cli- 
mates, and the plants, finding new conditions in which 
they must live, changed their shape and size, and be- 
came new kinds and new varieties. The Creator was 
in no haste. A few millions of years made no differ- 
ence in his work, and no doubt the plants, left to 



A TALK ABOUT USEFUL PLANTS. 221 

themselves, grew up to the tribes and famihes m 
which they now appear. In time many plants of 
strange forms and gigantic stature appeared and 
spread over the earth, and then disappeared utterly, 
so that we can not find any like them now living. 
Even to this day we can not be sure that we have 
found all the kinds and varieties of plants that grow. 
Some traveler may bring back from South America 
or Africa a new plant that has no name, and is not 
described in any of our lists of plants. There are 
also other plants that seem to be disappearing, and 
perhaps in a few years not one of their kind can be 
found in the world. 

3. While plants now cover almost the whole of 
the land surface of the earth, and while we may be 
sure that they have been growing here for countless 
centuries on centuries, we must notice that not all 
plants are equally useful either as food for ourselves 
or for cattle, or useful for other purposes. Millions 
on millions of plants grow every summer in this coun- 
try that are of no use whatever. Many more are an 
injury, because growing where better plants should 
grow ; many are harmful and troublesome, and some 
are even poisonous. It has always been so since men 
began to live on the earth, and it probably took a very 
long time to discover which of all the many varieties 
of plants were really good and useful. There is 
every reason to think that plants appeared and grew 
upon the earth millions of years before the first men 
came to eat their fruits. These men, far back in the 
unknown past, were poor, starving creatures, dwell- 



222 THE PLANT WORLD. 

ing in trees and in caves, and with only sticks for arms 
and stones for tools. They found certain plants bore 
fruits, that the leaves of others were soft and succu- 
lent and fit to eat, or had roots that were fit for a cold 
breakfast. We can not tell when it happened ; a 
million years ago, perhaps longer. No one can tell 
when or where men first saw that certain plants were 
pleasant to the eye and good for food. In time the 
art of cooking was invented, and then the number of 
plants fit for food greatly increased, because many 
plants that were not fit to eat raw could now be used. 
4. Some prehistoric discoverer also learned that the 
pith or interior parts of certain plants could be made 
into cloths for garments and tent-covers. Other dis- 
coverers learned that certain trees gave v^ood admira- 
ble for bows and for spears. At first, and perhaps for 
many thousand years, all plants grew wild and took 
care of themselves. The idea of planting seeds and 
cultivating the ground about the young plants was a 
great step in advance. As soon as men began to do 
this they learned that the plants were greatly im- 
proved, and that they themselves, their wives and 
children could hve in greater comfort and safety. 
When they depended alone on wild fruits, nuts, and 
berries they were little better than wild beasts. When 
they began to cultivate plants, men became some- 
thing like civilized human beings. So it has been 
since men began to care for plants. The more they 
cultivated them, the more civilized they became, the 
greater the variety and the value of the wealth they 
won from the ground. 



A TALK ABOUT USEFUL PLANTS. 223 

5. Then another curious thing happened. When 
men began to cultivate plants thej gained more food 
to eat, better garments to wear, and greater comfort 
in living, and learned that the plants were hkewise 
improved. The first wild fruits were small and sour, 
or of very poor flavor. As soon as the plants were 
cultivated the fruits grew larger and sweeter, and the 
crops were more abundant. The plants, finding them- 
selves protected and allowed to grow in better soil, 
quickly took advantage of these things and changed 
their character, becoming larger and stronger, and 
bearing more beautiful fiowers and finer fruits. As 
men became more skillful, the plants improved still 
more and changed their character greatly, and new 
kinds appeared. To-day many of us might not recog- 
nize a wild apple if we found one on a tree in the 
woods, so small and poor would it appear beside the 
hundreds of beautiful kinds we see in the fruit stores. 
We see the wild rose by the roadside in June, and 
wonder how the Jacqueminot, the Sofrano, and La 
France could have come from such a plain, single 
flower as that. At one time these splendid beauties 
of the greenhouse did not exist, and there were only 
the small wild roses to be found anywhere. In the 
same way all our fine vegetables have come from a 
few small wild plants growing in the woods. 

6. The work of cultivating and improving plants 
began before there were books or any means of re- 
cording events ; or, as we say, in " prehistoric times." 
It may have been thousands of years before any man 
thought of such a thing as history. After a while 



224 THE PLANT WORLD. 

one man told another of the plants he had taken from 
the woods, and he repeated it to others. Still other 
men learned by experiment how to cultivate the soil 
and explained this to others who wished to learn, and 
thus in time there grew up the art of agriculture, or 
field-culture. A great many facts were collected and 
handed down from father to son, and at last these 
facts were written out and put in books. So we find 
the art of caring for plants is one of the oldest arts in 
the world. Men also began to study plants as living 
things, without regard to their being useful or not, 
and there grew up the science of botany. This sci- 
ence has given names to plants, has classified them, 
or arranged them into groups and families, and has 
gathered a great many facts as to how plants live and 
grow. Botany includes the study of all plants, both 
wild and useful plants. It is a delightful and most 
interesting science, and will repay years of study. 

Charles Barnard, " Talks about our Useful Plants." 



SUBTEEEA]!^EAJSr YEGETATIOK 

1. Of all the phenomena which attract the natu- 
ralist's attention, as he wanders over the surface of 
the earth, there is none which makes a deeper im- 
pression on his mind than the omnipresence of life. 
On the snow-clad cone of Chimborazo, eighteen thou- 
sand feet above the level of the sea, Hu aboldt found 
butterflies and other winged insects, while high over 



^^ 



SUBTERRANEAN VEGETATION. 225 

his head the condor was soaring in solitary majesty. 
At the still greater elevation of 18,460 feet, at the 
Doonkiah Pass in the Himalaya Mountains, Dr. 
Hooker plucked flowering plants, and saw large flocks 
of wild geese winging their flight above Kanchin jinga 
(28,100 feet) toward the unknown regions of central 
Asia. Thus man meets with life as far as he is able 
to ascend, or as far as his sight plunges into the at- 
mospheric ocean. Besides the objects visible to his 
eye, innumerable microscopical organisms pervade the 
realms of air. 

2. According to Ehrenberg's brilliant discovery, the 
impalpably fine dust which, wafted by the Harmattan, 
often falls on ships when hundreds of miles from the 
coast of Africa, consists of agglomerations of silica- 
coated diatoms, individually so small as to be invisible 
to the naked eye, and everywhere numberless minute 
germs of future life — eggs of insects and sporules of 
cryptogamic plants — well fitted by cilia and feathery 
crowns for an aerial journey, float up and down in the 
atmosphere ; while the waters of the ocean are found 
in like manner filled with myriads of animated atoms. 
But organic life not only occupies those parts of our 
globe which are accessible to solar light ; it also dives 
profoundly into the subterranean world, wherever rain 
or the melted snow, filtering through the porous earth 
or through vents and crevices, is able to penetrate into 
natural caverns or artificial mines. For the combina- 
tion of moisture, warmth, and air is able to develop 
organic life o Jen thousands of feet below the surface 
of the earth, while light, though indispensable to most 
16 



226 THE PLANT WORLD. 

creatures, would blight and destroy the inhabitants of 
the subterranean vaults. 

3. On surveying the flora of these dismal recesses, 
we find it consisting exclusively of mushrooms or 
fungi, the lowest forms of vegetation, which, shun- 
ning the light, love darkness and damp. Their ap- 
pearance in the caves is, as everywhere else, dependent 
upon the existence of an organic basis, and thus they 
are most commonly found germinating on pieces of 
wood, particularly in a state of decomposition, which 
have been conveyed into the caverns either through 
the agency of man or by the influx of water. Spe- 
cies of a peculiarly luxuriant growth are sometimes 
seen to spread over the neighboring stores, or appar- 
ently to spring from the rocky ground, where, how- 
ever, on closer inspection, vestiges of decayed organic 
substances will generally be detected. 

4, Thus vegetation in caves most commonly keeps 
pace with the quantity of moldering wood which they 
contain, and flourishes not only near their entrance 
but in their deepest recesses, as, for instance, in the 
Cave of Adelsberg, where at a distance of more than 
a thousand fathoms from its entrance the pegs which 
have been driven into the stalactital walls for the 
purpose of measuring its length are covered with a 
rich coat of fungi. ISTothing can be more curious 
than to see these plants, ^^ "ving and luxuriating in 
deep stillness and gloom, under circumstances so alien 
to the ordinary conditions of life. Among the fun^i 
found in caves, many also vegetate upon the s;^ 

of the earth exposed to the influence of light, anc jb 



SUBTERRANEAN VEGETATION. 227 

seldom degenerate into monstrous forms in tlieir less 
congenial subterranean abodes ; but many are the ex- 
clusive children of darkness. The Austrian naturalist 
Scopoli published in 1772 the first exact description 
of more than seventy subterranean fungi, collected 
chiefly in the mines of Schemnitz and Idria, and 
about twenty years later Humboldt wrote his cele- 
brated treatise on the same subject. Since then G. 
r. Hoffmann has described the subterranean flora of 
the Harz Mountains, and latterly the botanists Wel- 
witsch and Pokomy have examined the caves of 
Carinthia, where they discovered no less than eighteen 
species of fungi, among others the mouse-tail mush- 
room {Agav'^v^s myurus^ Hoffm.), which is also found 
in the Harz, and bears on a slender hairy stalk, more 
than a foot long, a small hat, scarcely a quarter of an 
inch in diameter. Some of these fungi are remarka- 
ble for their size {Thelephora rvMginosa sa/nguino- 
lenta), others for their elegance (Diderma nigrijpei). 

5. Some years ago a gigantic fungus, found grow- 
ing from the woodwork of a tunnel near Doncaster, 
England, afforded a striking proof of the luxuriance of 
subterranean vegetation. It measured no less than 
fifteen feet in diameter, and was, in its way, as great 
a curiosity as one of the colossal trees of California. 

6. Even the plants that flourish in the darkness of 
caves have been renc ..3d- subservient to our use. 
The cultivation of the edible mushroom in spacious 
caverns or ancient quarries is practiced to a great ex- 
ten^^in the environs of Paris, at Arcueil, Moulin de la 
E/Jche, and Saint- Germain, but particularly at Mont- 



228 THE PLANT WORLD. 

%-ouge, on the southern side of the city. The mush- 
room beds are entirely underground, seventy or eighty 
feet below the surface, at a depth where the tempera- 
ture is nearly uniform all the year round. These ex- 
tensive catacombs, formed by long, burrowing galleries, 
have no opening but by a circular shaft, to be descend- 
ed by clambering down a perpendicular pole or mast, 
into the ^es of which large wooden pegs are fixed, at 
intervals of ten or twelve inches, to rest the feet upon. 
7. The baskets containing the ripe mushrooms are 
hoisted from below by a pulley and rope. The com- 
post in which they grow consists of a white gritty 
earth, mixed with good stable manure, and is molded 
into narrow beds about twenty inches high, ranged 
along the sides of the passages or galleries, and kept 
exquisitely neat and smooth. The mushroom sporules 
are introduced to the beds either by flakes of earth 
taken from an old bed or else from a heap of decom- 
posing stable manure in which mushrooms have natu- 
rally been engendered. The beds are covered with a 
layer of earth an inch thick, the earth being merely the 
white rubbish left by the stone-cutters above. They 
must be well watered and removed after two or three 
months, when their bearing qualities are exhausted. 
In one of the caves at Montrouge alone there are six 
or seven miles of mushroom bedding, a proof that 
this branch of industry is by no means unimportant. 
G. Hartwig, '' The Subterranean World." 

THE END. 



F 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

AM I LIAR FLOWERS OF FIELD AND 
GARDEN. By F. Schuyler Mathews. Illustrated with 
200 Drawings by the Author, and containing an elaborate Index 
showing at a glance the botanical and popular names, family, 
color, locality, environment, and time of bloom of several hun- 
dred flowers. i2mo. Library Edition, cloth, $1.75 ; Pocket 
Edition, flexible covers, $2.2*5. 

In this convenient and useful volume the flowers which one f -J- in the fields are 
identified, illustrated, and described in familiar language. Their connection with gar- 
den flowers is made clear. Particular attention is drawn to the beautiful ones which 
have come under cultivation, and, as the title indicates, the book furnishes a ready 
guide to a knowledge of wild and cultivated flowers alike. 

"I have examined Mr. Mathews's little book upon 'Familiar Flowers of Field and 
Garden,' and I have pleasure in commending the accuracy and beauty of the drawings 
and the freshness of the text. We have long needed some botany from the hand of an 
artist, who sees form and color without the formality of the scientist. The book deserves 
a reputation." — L. H. Bailey, Professor of Horticidticre, Cornell U7iiversity. 

" I am much pleased with your 'Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden.' It is a 
useful and handsomely prepared handbook, and the elaborate index is an especially 
valuable part of it. Taken in connection with the many careful drawings, it would 
.seem as though your little volume thoroughly covers its subject." — Louis Prang. 

" The author describes in a most interesting and charming manner many familiar 
wild and cultivated plants, enlivening his remarks by crisp epigrams, and rendering 
identification of the subjects described simple by means of some two hundred draw- 
ings from Nature, made by his own pen. . . . The book will do much to more fully 
acquaint the reader with those plants of field and garden treated upon with which he 
may be but partly familiar, and go a long way toward correcting many popular 
errors existing in the matter of colors of their flowers, a subject to which Mr. Mathews 
has devoted much attention, and on which he is now a recognized authority in the 
trade." — New. York Florists' ExcJia7ige. 

"A book of much value and interest, admirably arranged for the student and the 
lover of flowers. . . . The text is full of compact inform.ation, well selected and interest- 
ingly presented. ... It seems to us to be a most attractive handbook of its kind."— 
New York Sun. 

"A dehghtful book and very useful. Its language is plain and familiar, and the 
illustrations are dainty works of art. It is just the book for those who want to be 
familiar with the well-known flowers, those that grow in the cultivated gardens as well 
as those that blossom in the fields." — Ncivark Daily Advertiser. 

"Seasonable and valuable. The young botanist and the lover of flowers, who have 
only studied from Nature, will be greatly aided by this work." — Pittsburg Post. 

"Charmingly written, and to any one who loves the flowers— and who does not? 

will prove no less fascinating than instructive. It will open up in the garden and the 
fields a new world full of curiosity and delight, and invest them with a new interest in 
his sight." — Christian Work. 

" One need not be deeply read in floral lore to be interested in what ^Ir. Mathews 
has written, and the more proficient one is therein the greater his satisfaction is likely 
to be." — New York Mail a7id Express. 

" Rlr. F. Schuyler Mathews's carefiil description and giaceful drawings of our 
' Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden ' are fitted to make them familiar even to those 
who have not before made their acquaintance." — New York Evening Post. 



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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

^ ■ — — ■ __ 

PAMILIAR TREES AND THEIR LEAVES. 

^ By F. Schuyler Mathews, author of "Familiar Flowers of 
Field and Garden," " The Beautiful Flower Garden," etc. Il- 
lustrated with over 200 Drawings from Nature by the Author. 
i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

" It is not often that we find a book which deserves such unreserved commendation. 
It is commendable for several reasons : it is a book that has been needed for a long 
time, it is written in a popular and attractive style, it is accurately and profusely illus- 
trated, and it is by an authority on the subject of which it treats." — Public Opinion. 

" Most readers of the book will find a world of information they never dreamed of 
about leaves that have long been familiar with them. The study wiU open to them 
new sources of pleasure in every tree around their houses, and prove interesting as well 
as instructive." — San Francisco Call. 

"A revelation of the sweets and joys of natural things that we are too apt to pass 
by with but little or no thought The book is some what more than an ordinary botan- 
ical treatise on leaves and trees. It is a heart-to heart talk with Nature, a true appre- 
ciation of the beauty and the real usefulness of leaves and trees." — Boston Courier. 

" Has about it a simplicity and a directness of purpose that appeal at once to every 
lover of Nature." — N'ew York Mail and Express. 

" Mr. Mathews's book is just what is needed to open our eyes. His text is charm- 
ing, and displays a loving and intimate acquaintance with tree life, while the drawings 
of foliage are beautifully executed. We commend the volume as a welcome companion 
in country walks." — Philadtlphia Public Ledger. 

"The book is one to read, and then to keep at hand for continual reference." — 
Chicago Dial. 

" The unscientific lover of Nature will find this book a source of enjoyment as well 
as of instruction, and it will be a valuable introduction to the more scientific study of 
the subject." — Cleveland Plain Dealer. 

" This book will be found most satisfactory. It is a book which is needed, written 
by one who knows trees as he knows people." — Minneapolis Journal. 

"A book of large value to the student. The reader gathers a wide and valuable 
knowledge which will awaken new interest in every tramp through the forest" — C/ti- 
cago hiter-Ocean. 

" A most admirable volume in many ways. It meets a distinct and widely felt 
want ; the work is excellently done ; its appearance is very timely. . . . Written in a 
clear and simple style, and requires no previous technical knowledge of botany to under- 
stand it." — Baltimore News. 

' ' This very valuable book will be prized by all who love Nature. " — The Churchman. 

"Of the many Nature books that are constantly inviting the reader to leave pave- 
ment and wander in country bjrpaths, this one, with its scientific foundation, and its 
simplicity and clearness of style, is among the most alluring." — St. Paul Pioneer-Press. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 



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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

HE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 

AND OBSERVATIONS ON NATURE. By Gilbert 
White. With an Introduction by John Burroughs, 80 Illus- 
trations by Clifton Johnson, and the Text and New Letters of 
the Buckland edition. In two volumes. i2mo. Cloth, $4.00. 

" White himself, were he alive to-day, would join all his loving readers in thanking 
the American publishers for a thoroughly excellent presentation of his famous book. 
. . . This latest edition of White's book must go into all of our libraries; our young 
people must have it at hand, and our trained lovers of select literature must take it into 
their homes. By such reading we keep knowledge in proper perspective and are able 
to grasp the proportions of discovery." — Maurice Thojnpson, in the Independent. 

" White's * Selbome ' belongs in the same category as Walton's * Complete Angler' ; 
. . . here they are, the * Complete Angler ' well along in its third century, and the other 
just started in its second century, both of them as highly esteemed as they were when 
first published, both bound to live forever, if we may trust the predictions of their re- 
spective admirers. John Burroughs, in his charming introduction, tells us why White's 
book has lasted and why this new and beautiful edition has been printed. . . . This new 
edition of his work comes to us beautifully illustrated by Clifton Johnson." — New York 
Times. 

" White's ' Selbome ' has been reprinted many times, in many forms, but never be- 
fore, so far as we can remember, in so creditable a form as it assumes in these two 
volumes, nor with drawings comparable to those which Mr. Clifton Johnson has made 
for them." — New York Mail and Express. 

" We are loath to put down the two handsome volumes in which the source of such 
a gift as this has been republished. The type is so clear, the paper is so pleasant to 
the touch, the weight of each volume is so nicely adapted to the hand, and one turns 
page after page with exactly that quiet sense of ever new and ever old endeared de- 
light which comes through a window looking on the English countryside— the rooks 
cawing in a neighboring copse, the little village nestling sleepily amid the trees, trees 
so green that sometimes they seem to hover on the edge of black, and then again so 
green that they seem vivid with the flaunting bravery of spring." — New York 
Tribune. 

"Not only for the significance they lend to one of the masterpieces of English 
literature, but as a revelation of English rural life and scenes, are these pictures de- 
lightfully welcome. The edition is in every way creditable to the pubhshers." — 
Boston Beacon. 

" Rural England has many attractions for the lover of Nature, and no work, per- 
haps, has done its charms greater justice than Gilbert White's ' Natural History of 
Selborne.' " — Boston Journal. 

"This charming edition leaves really nothing to be desired." — Westminster 
Gazette. 

" This edition is beautifully illustrated and bound, and deserves to be welcomed by 
all naturalists and Nature lovers."— Z^m^<7« Daily Chronicle. 

" Handsome and desirable in every respect. . . . Welcome to old and young." — 
Ne%v York Herald. 

"The charm of White's ' Selborne' is not definable. But there is no other book of 
the past generations that will ever take the place with the field naturalists."— ^a///- 
more Sun. 



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THE LIBRARY OF USEFUL STORIES. 

Each book complete in itself. By writers of authority in their various 
spheres, ibmo. Cloth, 40 cents per volume. 

NOW READY. 

Y^BE STOR Y OF THE STARS. By G. F. Cham- 

J. BERS, F. R. A. S., author of " Handbook of Descriptive and 
Practical Astronomy," etc. With 24 Illustrations, 

"The author presents his wonderful and 'at times bewildering facts in a bright and 
cheery spirit that makes the book doubly attractive." — Boston Home Journal. 

'HE STORY OF ''PRIMITIVE'' MAN. By 
Edward Clodd, author of " The Story of Creation," etc, 

" No candid person will deny that Mr. Clodd has come as near as any one at this 
time is likely to come to an authentic exposition of all the information hitherto gained 
regarding the earlier stages in the evolution of mankind." — New York Sun. 

HE STORY OF THE PLANTS. By Grant 

Allen, author of " Flowers and their Pedigrees," etc. 

"As fascinating in style as a first-class story of fiction, and is a simple and clear 
exposition of plant life." — Boston Hotne yournal. 

"J^HE STORY OF THE EARTH. By H. G. 
jt Seeley, F. R. S., Professor of Geography in King's College, 
London. With Illustrations. 

"It is doubtful if the fascinating story of the planet on which we live has been pre- 
viously told so clearly and at the same time so comprehensively." — Boston Advertiser. 

HE STORY OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. By 

G. F. Chambers, F. R. A. S. 

" Any intelligent reader can get clear ideas of the movements of the worlds about us. 
. Will impart a wise knowledge of astronomical wonders." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 



T 



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HE STORY OF A PIECE OF COAL. By E. 

A. Martin, F. G. S. 



" The value and importance of this volume are out of all proportion to its size and 
outward appearance." — Chicago Record. 

HE STORY OF ELECTRICITY. By John 
Monro, C. E. 

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alone on the desk of the student, but on the workbench of the practical electrician." — 
New York Times. 



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HE STORY OF EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS 

OF THE EAST. By Robert Anderson, M.A., F. A. S., 
author of *' Early England," " The Stuart Period," etc. 



New York • D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 



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^HE GARDEN'S STORY; or. Pleasures and 
Trials of an Amateur Gardener. By George H. Ellw anger. 
With Head and Tail Pieces by Rhead. i2mo. Cloth, extra, 
$1.50. 

"Mr. EUwanger's instinct rarely errs in matters of taste. He writes out of the 
fullness of experimental knowledge, but his knowledge differs from that of many a 
trained cultivator in that his skill in garden practice is guided by a refined aesthetic 
sensibility, and his appreciation of what is beautiful in nature is healthy, hearty, and 
catholic. His record of the garden year, as we have said, begins with the earliest 
violet, and it follows the season through until the witch-hazel is blossoming on the 
border of the wintry woods. . . . This little book can not fail to give pleasure to all 
who take a genuine interest in rural life." — New York Tribune. 



r 



HE ORIGIN OE CULTIVATED PLANTS. 

By Alphonse de Candolle. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 

" Though a fact familiar to botanists, it is not generally known how great is the 
uncertainty as to the origin of many of the most important cultivated plants. ... In 
endeavoring to unravel tlie matter, a knowledge of botany, of geography, of geology, 
of history, and of philosophy is required. By a combination of testimony derived from 
these sources M. de Candolle has been enabled to determine the botanical origin and 
geographical source of the large proportion of species he deals with. " — The A thenceutn. 

y^HE EOLK-LORE OE PLANTS. By T. F. This- 

-• ELTON Dyer, M. A. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" A handsome and deeply interesting volume. ... In all respects the book is ex- 
cellent. Its arrangement is simple and intelligible, its style bright and alluring. 
... To all who seek an introduction to one of the most attractive branches of folk- 
lore, this delightful volume may be warmly commended. — Notes and Queries. 



F 



LOWERS AND THEIR PEDLGREES. By 
Grant Ai.lfn, author of "Vignettes of Nature," etc. Illus- 
trated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" No writer treats scientific subjects with so much ease and charm of style as Mr. 
Grant Allen. The study is a delightful one, and the book is fascinating to any one 
who has either love for flowers or curiosity about them." — Harijoid Courant. 

"Any one with even a smattering of botanical knowledge, and with either a heart 
or mind, must be charmed with this collection of essays." — Chicago Evening Jouriial. 

7-^HE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OE PLANTS. 
By Sir J. William Dawson, F. R. S. Illustrated. i2mo. 
Cloth, $1.75. 

"The object of this work is to give, in a connected form, a summary of the develop- 
ment of the vegetable kingdom in geological time. To the geologist and botanist the 
subject is one of importance with reference to their special pursuits, and one on which 
it has not been easy to find any convenient manual of information. It is hoped that its 
treatment in the present volume will also be found sufficiently simple and popular to be 
attractive to the general reader." — From the Preface. 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



OUTINGS AT ODD TIMES. By Charles C. 
Abbott, author of " Days out of Doors " and " A Naturalist's 
Rambles about Home." l6mo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.25. 

" A charming little volume, literally alone with Nature, for it discusses seasons and 
the fields, birds, etc., with the loving freedom of a naturalist born. Every page reads, 
like a sylvan poem ; and for the lovers of the beautiful in quiet out-door and out-of- 
town life, this beautifully bound and attractively printed little volume will prove a 
companion and friend." — Rochester Union ancT Advertiser. 



A 



D 



NA TURALIST'S RAMBLES ABO UT HOME. 
By Charles C. Abbott. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

"The home about which Dr. Abbott rambles is clearly the haunt of fowl and fish, 
of animal and insect life ; and it is of the habits and nature of these that he discourses 
pleasantly in this book. Summer and winter, morning and evening, he has been in 
the open air all the time on the alert for some new revelation of instinct, or feeling, 
or character on the part of his neighbor creatures. Most that he sees and hears he 
reports agreeably to us, as it was no doubt delightful to himself. Books like this, 
which are free from all the technicalit'es of science, but yet lack little that has scien- 
tific value, are well suited to the reading of the young. Their atmosphere is a healthy 
one for boys in particular to breathe." — Boston Tratiscript. 

A YS OUT OF DOORS. By Charles C. Abbott- 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

"'Days out of Doors' is a series of sketches of animal life by Charles C. Abbott, 
a naturalist whose graceful writings have entertained and instructed the public before 
now. The essays and narratives in this book are grouped in twelve chapters, named 
after the months of the year. Under ' January ' the author talks of squirrels, musk- 
rats, water-snakes, and the predatory animals that withstand the rigor of winter; 
under 'February' of frogs and herons, crows and blackbirds; under 'March' of gulls 
and fishes and foxy sparrows; and so on appropriately, instructively, and divertingly 
through the whole twelve."^AVw York Sun. 

HE PLAYTIME NATURALIST. By Dr. J. E. 

Taylor, F. L, S., editor of " Science Gossip." With 366 Illus- 
trations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

"The work contains abundant evidence of the author's knowledge and enthusiasm, 
and any boy who may read it carefully is sure to find something to attract him. The 
style is clear and lively, and there are many good illustrations." — Nature. 

' Y^HE ORIGIN OF FLORAL STRUCTURES 

J- through Insects and other Agencies. By the Rev. George 
Henslow, Professor of Botany, Queen's College. With nu- 
merous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

"Much has been written on the structure of flowers, and it might seem almost 
superfluous to attempt to say anything more on the subject, but it is only within the 
last few years that a new literature has sprung up, in which the authors have described 
their observations and given their interpretations of the uses of floral mechanisms, more 
especially in connection with the processes of fertilization." — Frotn Introduction. 



T 



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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SERIES. 



IV 



" Will be hailed with delight by scholars and scientific specialists, and it will be 
gladly received try others who aspire after the useful knowledge it will impart." — New 
York Home Journal. 

NOW READY. 

OMAN'S SHARE IN PRIMITIVE CUL^ 
TURE. By Otis Tufton Mason, A. M., Curator of the 
Department of Ethnology in the United States National Mu- 
seum. With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 
"A most interesting resumi oi t\ie revelations which science has made concerning 
the habits of human beings in primitive times, and especially as to the place, the duties, 
and the customs of women." — Philadelphia Inquirer, 

" A highly entertaining and instructive book. . . . Prof. Mason's bright, graceful 
style must do much to awaken a lively interest in a study that has heretofore received 
such scant attention." — Baltimore American. 

" The special charm of Mr. Mason's book is that his studies are based mainly upon 
ctually existing types, rather than upon mere tTa.dition."—Fhiladelphia Times. 

HTHE PYGMIES. By A. de Quatrefages, late 

•'• Professor of Anthropology at the Museum of Natural History, 
Paris. With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 

" Probably no one was better equipped to illustrate the general subject than Quatre- 
fages. While constantly occupied upon the anatomical and osseous phases of his sub- 
ject, he was none the less well acquainted with what literature and history had to say 
concerning the pygmies. . . . This book ought to be in everj-^ divinity school in which 
man as well as God is studied, and from which missionaries go out to convert the human 
being of reality and not the man of rhetoric and text-books." — Boston Literary World. 

" It is fortunate that American students of anthropology are able to enjoy as lumi- 
nous a translation of this notable monograph as that which Prof Starr now submits to the 
public." — Philadelphia Press. 

" It is regarded by scholars entitled to offer an opinion as one of the half-doz«/« most 
important works of an anthropologist whose ethnographic publications numbered nearly 
■one hundred. " — Chicago Evening Post. 

^HE BEGINNINGS OF WRITING. By W. J. 

-^ Hoffman, M. D. With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. ("loth, 

$1.75. 
This interesting book gives a most attractive account of the rude methods employed 
by primitive man for recording his deeds. The earliest writing consists of pictography 
which were traced on stone, wood, bone, skins, and various paperlike substances, Dr, 
Hoffman shows how the several classes of symbols used in these records are t« be in- 
terpreted, and traces the growth of conventional signs up to syllabaries and alphabets — 
the two classes of signs employed by modern peoples. 

IN PREPARATION. 
THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS. By Dr. Schmeltz 
THE ZUNl. By Frank Hamilton Cushing. 
THE AZTECS. By Mrs. Zelia Nuttall. 



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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

THE STORY OF THE WEST SERIES. 

Edited "by Ripley Hitchcock. 

" There is avast extent of territory lying between the Missouri River and the Pacific 
coast which has barely been skimmed over so far. That the conditions of life therein 
are undergoing changes little short of marvelous will be understood when one recalls 
the fact that the first white male child bom in Kansas is still living there ; and Kansas 
is by no means one of the newer States. Revolutionary indeed has been the upturning 
of the old condition of affairs, and little remains thereof, and less will remain as each 
year goes by, until presently there will be only tradition of the Sioux and Comanches, 
the cowboy life, the wild horse, and the antelope. Histories, many of them, have been 
written about the Western country alluded to, but most if not practically all by outsiders 
who knew not personally that life of kaleidoscopic allurement. But ere it shall have 
vanished forever we are likely to have truthful, complete, and charming portrayals oi 
it produced by men who actually knew the life and have the power to describe it." — 
Henry Edward Rood, in the Mail and Express. 

NOW READY. 

"J^HE STORY OF THE INDIAN. By George 

■*■ Bird Grinnell, author of " Pawnee Hero Stories," " Black- 
foot Lodge Tales," etc. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" In every way worthy of an author who, as an authority upon the Western Indians, 
is second to none. A book full of color, abounding in observation, and remarkable in 
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to be looked for in such a work, and which adds not a Uttle to the charm of it." — 
London Daily Chronicle. 

" Only an author qualified by personal experience could offer us a profitable study 
of a race so alien from our own as is the Indian in thought, feeling, and culture. Only 
long association with Indians can enable a white man measurably to comprehend their 
thoughts and enter into their feelings. Such association has been Mr. Grinnell's."^ 
New York Sun. 



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HE STORY OF THE MINE. By Charles 
Howard Shinn. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" The author has written a book, not alone full of information, but replete with the 
true romance of the American mine." — New York Times. 

" Few chapters of recent history are more fascinating than that which Mr. Shinn 
has told in * The Story of the Mine.' "—The Outlook. 

"Both a history and a romance. . . . Highly interesting, new, and thrilling."— 
Philadelphia Inquirer. 

IN PREPARATION. 

The Story of the Trapper. By Gilbert Parker. 

The Story of the Cowboy. By E. Hough. 

The Story of the Soldier. By Capt. J. McB. Stembel, U. S. A. 

The Story of the Explorer. 

The Story of the Railroad. 



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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

HE BEGINNERS OF A NATION. A History 
of the Source and Rise of the Earliest English Settlements in 
America, with Special Reference to the Life and Character of 
the People. The first volume in A History of Life in the 
United States. By Edward Eggleston. Small 8v9. Cloth, 
gilt top, uncut, with Maps, $1.50. 

•* Few works on the period which it covers can compare with this in point of mere 
literary attractiveness, and we fancy that many to whom its scholarly value will not ap- 
peal will read the volume with interest and delight."— iV^w York Evenifig Post. 

" Written with a firm grasp of the theme, inspired by ample knowledge, and made 
attractive by a vigorous and resonant style, the book will receive much attention. It 
is a great theme the author has taken up, and he grasps it with the confidence of a 
master." — iWw York Tivies. 

" Mr. Eggleston's ' Beginners ' is unique. No similar historical study has, to our 
knowledge, ever been done in the same way. Mr. Eggleston is a reliable reporter of 
facts; but he is also an exceedingly keen critic. He writes history without the effort 
to merge the critic in the historian. His sense of humor is never dormant. He renders 
some of the dullest passages in colonial annals actually amusing by his witty treatment 
of them. He finds a laugh for his readers where most of his predecessors have found 
yawns. And with all this he does not sacrifice the dignity of history for an instant." — 
Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 

" The delightful style, the clear flow of the narrative, the philosophical tone, and 
the able analysis of men and events will commend Mr. Eggleston's work to earnest 
students." — Philadelphia Public Ledger. 

" The work is worthy of careful reading, not only because of the author's ability as a 
literary artist, but because of his conspicuous proficiency in interpreting the causes of 
and changes in American life and character." — Boston Jotcynal. 

"It is noticeable that Mr. Eggleston has followed no beaten track, but has drawn 
his own conclusions as to the early period, and they differ from the generally received 
version not a little. The book is stimulating and will prove of great value to the stu- 
dent of history." — Minneapolis Journal. 

" A very interesting as well as a valuable book. ... A distinct advance upon most 
that has been written, particularly of the setdement of New England." — Newark 
Advertiser. 

" One of the most important books of the year. It is a work of art as well as ot 
historical science, and its distinctive purpose is to give an insight into the real life and 
character of people. . . . The author's style is charming, and the history is fully as inter- 
esting as a noveV— Brooklyn Standard-Union. 

"The value of Mr. Eggleston's work is in that it is really a history of 'life,' not 
merely a record of events. . . . The comprehensive purpose of his volume has been 
excellently performed. The book is eminently x^zA^M^."— Philadelphia Times. 



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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

RUDYARD KIPLING'S NEW BOOK. 

HE SEVEN SEAS. A new volume of poems by 
RuDYARD Kipling, author of " Many Inventions," " Barrack- 
Room Ballads," etc. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50 ; half calf, $3.00 ; 
morocco, $5.00. 

" The spirit and method of Kipling's fresh arid virile song have taken the English 
reading world. . . . When we turn to the larger portion of ' The Seven Seas,' how 
imaginative it is, how impassioned, how superbly rhythmic and sonorous ! . . . The 
ring and diction of this verse add new elements to our song. , . . The true laureate 
of Greater Britain."— ,£. C. Siedman, in the Book Buyer. 

" The most original poet who has appeared in his generation. . . . His is the lusti- 
est voice now lifted in the world, the clearest, the bravest, with the fewest false notes 
in it . . . 1 do not see why, in reading his book, we should not put ourselves in the 
presence of a great poet again, and consent to put off our mourning for the high ones 
lately dead."— ^. D. Howells. 

" The new poems of Mr. Rudyard Kipling have all the spirit and swing of their 
predecessors. Throughout they are instinct with the qualities which are essentially 
his, and which have made, and seem likely to keep, for him his position and wide 
popularity." — London Times. 

" He has the very heart of movement, for the lack of which no metrical science 
could atone. He goes far because he can." — London Academy. 

" ' The Seven Seas ' is the most remarkable book of verse that Mr. Kipling has 
given us. Here the human sympathy is broader and deeper, the patriotism heartier 
and fuller, the intellectual and spiritual insight keener, the command of the literary 
vehicle more complete and sure, than in any previous verse work by the author. The 
volume pulses with power — power often rough and reckless in expression, but invariably 
conveying the effect intended. There is scarcely a line which does not testify to the 
strong individuality of the writer." — London Globe. 

" If a man holding this volume in his hands, with all its exiravagance and its savage 
realism, is not aware that it is animated through and through with indubitable genius — 
then he must be too much the slave of the conventional and the ordinary to understand 
that Poetry metamorphoses herself in many diverse forms, and that its one sovereign 
and indefeasible justification is — truth." — London Daily Telegraph. 

" ' The Seven Seas ' is packed with inspiration, with humor, with pathos, and with 
the old unequaled insight into the mind of the rank and file." — London Daily Chronicle. 

" Mr. Kipling's ' The Seven Seas ' is a distinct advance upon his characteristic 
lines. The surpassing strength, the almost violent originality, the glorious swish and 
swing of his lines — all are there in increased measure. . . . The book is a marvel of 
originality and genius — a brand-new landmark in the history of English letters." — = 
Chicago Tribune. 

" In ' The Seven Seas' are displayed all of Kipling's prodigious gifts. . . . Whoever 
reads 'The Seven Seas' will be vexed by the desire to read it again. The average 
charm of the gifts alone is irresistible." — Bosh • Journal. 



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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
HTHE RISE AND GROWTH OF THE ENG- 

LISH NATION. With Special Reference to Epochs and 

Crises. A Historj- of and for the People. By W. H. S. 

Aubrey, LL. D. In Three Volumes. i2mo. Cloth, 84.50. 

" The merit of this work is intrinsic. It rests on the broad inteUigence and true 
philosophy of the method employed, and the coherency and accuracy of the results 
reached. The scope of the work is marvelous. Never was there more crowded into 
three small volumes. But the saving of space is not by the sacrifice of substance or 
of sr>-le. The broadest view of the facts and forces embraced by the subject is exhibited 
with a clearness of arrangement and a definiteness of application that render it per- 
ceptible to the simplest apprehension." — AVw York Mail and Express. 

"A useful and thorough piece of work. One of the best treatises which the 
general reader can use." — London Daily Chronicle. 

"Conceived in a popular spirit, yet with strict regard to the modem standards. 
The title is fully borne out. No want of color in the descriptions." — London Daily 
News. 

"The plan laid down results in an admirable English history." — London Morning 
Post. 

"Dr. Aubrey has supplied a want. His method is undoubtedly the right one." — 

Pall Mall Gazette. 

" It is a distinct step forvvard in history writing; as far ahead of Green as he was of 
Macaulay, though on a different line. Green gives the picture of England at different 
times — Aubrey goes deeper, showing the causes which led to the changes." — Neiv 
York World. 

"A work that will commend itself to the student of history, and as a comprehen- 
sive and convenient reference book." — The Argonaut. 

"Contains much that the ordinary-- reader can with difficulty find elsewhere unless 
he has access to a librarj- of special works." — Chicago Dial. 

" Up to date in its narration of fact, and in its elucidation of those great principles 
that underlie all vital and worthy- history. . . . The painstaking division, along with 
the admirably complete index, will make it easy work for any student to get definite 
views of any era, or any particular feature of it. . . . The work strikes one as being 
more comprehensive than many that cover far more space." — The Christian hi- 
telligencer. 

" One of the most elaborate and noteworthy of recent contributions to historical 
literature." — Xeiv Haven Register. 

" As a popular history it possesses great merits, and in many particulars is excelled 
by none. It is full, careful as to dates, maintains a generally praiseworthy impartiality, 
and it is interesting to read." — Buffalo Express. 

" These volumes are a surprise and in their way a marvel. . . . They constitute an 
almost encylopaedia of English history, condensing in a marvelous manner the facts 
and principles developed in the history of the English nation. . . . The work is one of 
unsurpassed value to the historical student or even the general reader, and when more 
widely known will no doubt be appreciated as one of the remarkable contributions to 
English history published in the century." — Chicago Universalist. 

" In every page Dr. Aubrey writes with the far reaching relation of contemporary' 
incidents to the whole subject. The amount of matter these three volumes contain is 
marvelous. The style in which they are written is more than satisfactory'. . . . The 
work is one of unusual importance." — Hartford Post. 



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IV 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



ITH THE FATHERS. Studies in the History 
of the United States. By John Bach McMaster, Professor 
of American History in the University of Pennsylvania, au- 
thor of " The History of the People of the United States/" 
etc. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. 

*'The book is of great practical value, as many of the essays throw a 
broad light over living questions of the day. Prof. McMaster has a clear, 
simple style, that is delightful. His facts are gathered with great care, and 
admirably interwoven to impress the subject under discussion upon the mind 
of the reader." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

" Prof. McMaster's essays possess in their diversity a breadth which covers 
most of the topics which are current as well as historical, and each is so 
scholarly in treatment and profound in judgment that the importance of 
their place in the library of political history can not be gainsaid." — Wash- 
ington Times. 

' ' Such works as this serve to elucidate history and make more attractive 
a study which an abstruse writer only makes perplexing. All through the 
studies there is a note of intense patriotism and a conviction of the sound 
sense of the American people which directs the government to a bright 
goal." — Chicago Record. 

' ' A wide field is here covered, and it is covered in Prof. McMaster's own 
inimitable and fascinating style. . . . Can not but have a marked value as a 
work of reference upon several most important subjects." — Boston Daily 
Advertiser. 

"There is much that is interesting in this little book, and it is full of solid 
chunks of political information." — Buffalo Cominercial. 

' ' Clear, penetrating, dispassionate, convincing. His language is what one 
should expect from the Professor of American History in the University of 
Pennsylvania. Prof. McMaster has proved before now that he can write 
history with the breath of life in it, and the present volume is new proof." 
— Chicago Tribune. 

" Of great practical value. . . . Charming and instructive history." — 
New Haven Leader. 

" An interesting and most instructive volume." — Detroit Journal. 

"At once commends itself to the taste and judgment of all historical 
readers. His style charms the general reader with itS"T5pej:i^ and frank ways, 
its courageous form of statement, its sparkling, crisp narrative and descrip- 
tion, and its close and penetrating analysis of characters Vnd events."— 
Boston Courier. ^ 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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